Earning Your Place
by Raidho
Summary: AU: Fenris never escaped Danarius, and Hawke left Kirkwall after Act 2, hoping to make a better life for himself and his family in Tevinter.  As chance would have it, Hawke makes an enemy of a particular Magister...
1. The First Day

From a kmeme prompt: Hawke is still a mage from Ferelden but he has moved to Tevinter in search for freedom (oh, the irony, I know). Once in Tevinter he proves talented enough to rise among the ranks of Magisters and do so quickly. He and Danarius strike a vicious rivalry and Danarius sends Fenris, who is still his bodyguard/assassin to kill Hawke, but Hawke proves a tough nut to crack and overpower Fenris, taking him prisoner. Once forced to stay at Hawke's house Fenris is actually treated with respect - more so than in Danarius' household, despite having tried to kill Hawke. He slowly falls head over heels in love with his new master/captor.

This is an AU where Fenris made it onto the boat in Seheron, and both Hawke siblings survived. Hawke left Kirkwall after defeating the Arishok to find some peace and quiet somewhere he wouldn't be persecuted.

* * *

><p>Nothing marked the day as auspicious, no difference to their routine until near mid-day when a slave rushed into Danarius' study, bowing low until Danarius bade her speak with a gesture. "Your guests are here, Master."<p>

"Guests? How many came?" He didn't look up from his notes, which was not at all unusual; the slaves were little better than furniture.

"Two, Master. The young Magister and his brother."

"But not the sister. Unfortunate. Fetch Hadriana." Where he stood at the door, next to the girl, Fenris saw the full-body shiver that passed through her at the apprentice's name. "She is to entertain them until dinner. If she balks, tell her she will have the next slave to falter's lashes in their place." The girl flinched, knowing that such a threat would put her in a sore place with the apprentice. "You are dismissed."

Only once she'd fled did Danarius begin putting away his notes. "You are to remain at my side at all times today, Fenris. These guests are not to be trifled with. Fereldan savages; they're an unpredictable sort."

When they left the room Fenris heeled to his master like a dog, one pace behind on his left, which was his place in such times instead of simply at the magister's disposal. Thusly came his first novel thought of the day: he had never met a Fereldan before. He was not sure what to expect.

He spent much of the afternoon helping a couple of other closely-trusted slaves pack away the more sensitive experiments from Danariu's lab, always under Danarius' keen watch. It was more exciting, at least, than standing guard at a door. None of them chatted under Danarius' watch, and Fenris wondered how much of that was discomfort in _his_ presence, marked, _favored_as he was.

Dinner was served in one of Danarius' more intimate dining rooms, as it was just himself, Hadriana, and the brothers Hawke—so he'd heard a servant call them—and Fenris, standing just behind Danarius' chair and to his left, at the man's beck and call, and with Hadriana at his right shielding the magister from any direct contact with the guests. Much of the conversation simply washed over him, as it was more his place to scrutinize them physically, to search for weaknesses and assess them as a threat. Talk about lyrium trade and idle chatter about the Blight the guests had apparently fled, smattered with a little gossip about "cousin Amell" meant less than nothing to Fenris.

They didn't much look like savages to Fenris, but he wasn't entirely sure what a savage _should_look like. They were taller, at least, than most Tevinters, and certainly broader than any mages he had met. The younger brother's manner of dress was somewhat unusual for Tevinter, yes, but the older wore robes even Fenris could identify as a very junior member of the Senate, different shades of rich blue and chased in silver. They didn't look much related, either, the younger brother dark-haired and light-skinned, his eyes an almost yellowish brown; the older, the one who was quite clearly a mage and by all appearances a senator, his skin was just a tad darker, his unruly hair tending more toward auburn, and neatly shaven save for his prominent sideburns—which would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, and his eyes a paler blue, the only shade missing from his robes.

The younger kept to himself on matters of magic, chewing his lip as if irritated with the talk. The elder was glib, his humor contagious, and Fenris suspected Danarius hadn't smiled so much in his life that wasn't at a successful experiment or a particularly inventive punishment, of the clever defeat of a political rival. The smile widened when Danarius followed the elder's repeated glances to the slave at his elbow.

"You've an interest in my bodyguard, I see."

"His markings vex me." The elder's voice was a rich tenor, and Fenris had to avert his eyes quickly so as to avoid making eye contact. "They appear to be lyrium. What purpose would that serve?"

Their talk turned to some business in the Free Marches the Hawke family had neatly avoided, stranded Qunari invading a city or some such, which had been his reason for coming here. The brothers seemed reluctant to discuss the particulars, though both Danarius and Hadriana pressed in a delicate fashion, at length drawing from the elder, "Their Arishok is dead by my hand. Let's leave it at that, please."

This unknown foreigner supping with Danarius, wearing the robes of a newly-made senator, made _perfect_ sense now, and Fenris looked on him in a new light. _Dangerous_ didn't begin to cover it if it was even true that this man had held his own against an Arishok, nevermind defeated one.

ooooo

As promised, Danarius arranged for a demonstration after dinner, which was quite simple; one of the soldiers Danarius kept on to guard his manse, which lay just outside Minrathous since they'd been driven from Seheron, faced off against him out in the training yard, first with swords, which was more a choreographed dance than a fight, and then hand to hand. When Fenris plunged his hand into the man's chest he was _very, very_careful not to do any permanent damage—these were servants, after all, not slaves—but he was still led away choking and gasping by his fellows.

Fenris expected the ordeal to be over, glanced to Danarius watching from beneath a pavilion for some signal, found instead Danarius scowling at the brothers Hawke and Hadriana delicately hiding a smile, the guests in a heated argument Fenris couldn't quite make out. It ended in the younger brother stalking out onto the practice field and the elder yelling, "Fine! Get yourself killed, Carver!"

The younger brother—Carver, then—stalked out onto the practice field, and stopped just a blade's length from him, grinning in a mix of hunger and youthful pride Fenris had seen plenty of times before. "_You_," he said, "look like a _challenge_."

Fenris looked to Danarius for some sign, and his master gestured that Fenris should give the man what he wanted. Another slave brought out a greatsword, the hilt of which Carver fingered lovingly before taking a stance. Fenris retrieved his blade, but did not react to the human, waiting for him to move first.

So he did. And Carver was _strong_, relentless, his strikes so powerful that in blocking them Fenris' arms shook from the impact. He wasn't simply strong, either, but clearly had some experience behind him, formal training somewhere in his education that gave his power focus and precision. _Challenge_, indeed—the lyrium markings flared to life as Fenris stepped half into the fade to lessen the impact of the blows.

But Carver did not stop, he did not tire. Fenris found he had to put his all into the fight, narrowly missing blows and having his own blade turned away just as surely. Carver made a mistake, eventually, and Fenris darted in, instead of laying a lethal blow bringing his pommel a hair's breadth from the man's throat.

Carver _roared_ at the indignation, and Fenris hardly had time to brace himself for a fall as Carver knocked him back. There was _anger_in the man's eyes then, as if that had been a grave insult, and Carver was on him before he could pull himself up out of the dirt. It was reflex, then, when his hand phased through Carver's throat to grip his windpipe. And then several things happened at once.

Carver stilled, dropping his sword, choking as Fenris' hand tightened. The elder brother called out his sibling's name, rising from his seat, and Danarius commanded, "_Release!_" Fenris could do nothing but obey, his hand slipping out of Carver's flesh more or less safely. In a single breath Carver was off him, scrambling away, and the elder brother suddenly at his side, inspecting the damage, a glow of gentle magic on his fingertips.

Fenris righted himself, coming up to a kneeling position just as his master and master's apprentice reached him. "See that he is properly disciplined," Danarius said, just loud enough that the brothers would hear it. Danarius turned away, and all Fenris saw of him was his boots and the hem of his robe. "Is your brother well, Aodhan?"

"He's fine." Watching Danarius walk away meant that Fenris looked at the brothers where they knelt in the dirt, and he caught those pale blue eyes for a moment, something between awe and concern in them—directed at _him_.

"Fine? I'm fine after randomized surgery?" Carver choked out.

"Your case of melodrama is sadly terminal," the elder brother deadpanned, and if anything else passed between them Fenris didn't catch it as Hadriana tapped into the lyrium in his skin and drained him, which put him face-down on the ground, breathless and writhing in agony, to struggle back up before he could follow her off.

Those pale blue eyes and their concern followed him, and Fenris wondered, briefly, what it would be like to have someone worry over him as the elder Hawke had over his brother, carried himself through Hadriana's punishment with the fantasy of those nimble fingers tending his own wounds with gentle magic. It was so unlike him, Fenris almost began to worry by the time Hadriana was done with him. There was nothing for him beyond the walls of the compound, after all, and no comfort or hope to be found in others. That had been made abundantly clear over the years: kindness was cruelty wrapped in a sweet coating, and hope self-deception.

ooooo

Fenris took his post outside Danarius' favored study, bearing the lingering pain of Hadriana's punishment with little more than a stiffness to his motions and a strong set to his jaw-he had endured worse, _far_worse, than the bruising and fine marks she'd left him with this time, and recognized only the knowledge that they needed him rightly whole had stayed her hand from greater cruelties. There was a dim sort of pride in the amount of pain he could endure, one of the few indulgences he allowed himself.

Carver was there, a loose grip on a comely slave girl's shoulder, speaking to her in soft tones with a gentle smile on his face, oblivious to the fear and confusion that ran underneath her bland acceptance of his manner. They were making eye contact, though, and Fenris felt his breath hitch. If Hadriana saw-

She used Fenris' appearance to excuse herself, and Carver let her go as she pleased, turning to Fenris with an exasperated huff of breath. Fenris carefully avoided matching the appraising gaze that passed over him, but knew there was greater observance and calculation in it than the younger Hawke let on. "Well, I should've tried to bet Aodhan on what state you'd be in. Your hide's intact," _for now_, but Fenris said nothing as it was not his place, "I'm still breathing through the right holes, no hard feelings?" And the younger Hawke offered him a hand.

Fenris eyed the offered hand for a moment, glanced up to catch the lazy smile on Carver's face, but didn't take it. He'd had this trick played on him only once before, and would not make the mistake again. Instead, he nodded demurely, looking away.

After a moment of hesitation Carver's hand fell aside, and he made a sound that seemed half a sigh before shifting to lean against the wall, as if he meant to slide down it and sit on the floor. Fenris began to wonder why he was here and not somewhere more comfortable.

"We could've used a sword-arm like yours in that mess with the Qunari," Carver said, as if unable to bear the silence, needing to fill it with something. When he got no reaction, he kept talking. "Have you been with Danarius long?" Fenris nodded once, barely perceptible, still refusing to look at the human. "Then do you know Tevinter well? I think Aodhan keeps moving us around just to keep us confused so we'll stay with him." Fenris wasn't sure what to say to that, and was unwilling to rise to Carver's bait anyway, knowing this game for what it was. "Fine! I get it. Seen and not heard or whatever it is-pardon my _savagery_, you get caught with slaves in Ferelden you're like as not to be lynched by the townsfolk." The younger Hawke did slide down the wall to sit, dejectedly.

Silence fell between them, not quite thirty minutes' worth before the elder Hawke's voice raised, his tone angry but his words muffled by the door. Carver stood, and Fenris bristled, but he never felt the pull of Danarius' magic, those red tendrils twined into his mind gave no hint of distress. The argument calmed quickly enough, and the elder Hawke stormed out after a reasonable amount of time, Carver quickly falling in step behind him and a servant darting out of the room to catch up. Those pale eyes brushed over him again, a quick assessment, such sincere emotion-he _wanted_to believe in it, wanted more of it, and the way the brothers walked so carefully close, speaking in hushed tones in comfortable confidence even though the elder was clearly angry.

Fenris had no frame of reference for it, as Danarius' service was his entire existence. He didn't bunk with the other slaves, so his knowledge of family ties and deeper relations than temporary alliance was academic at best. His only experience with these sorts of emotions was the pride he felt when he satisfied his master, and Danarius' occasional dark affection-which was rarely more than a word or two of praise.

Danarius emerged from the room while Fenris was still watching the brothers Hawke retreating down the hall, a grim little smile on his face. "I will be in my lab," he said. "Regrettably, you would not be able to stomach this experiment, I think. You will take this time for dinner, and for your exercises. If either of the brothers approaches you again, you may speak to them." A whisper of magic across his mind, as of a strong hand trying to be delicate, and a song in his blood. Had they been physical sensations Fenris would've leaned into them, like a dog to a good petting. "Discretion." Danarius drew away from him, smiling softly. "But you know your place." Which was as much of an admission of faith or trust as Fenris could expect.

The words would normally have left him trying to calm his pride, but for once they left him hollow. It was a melancholy he couldn't quite fathom, a _want_. But it was not his place to have _wants_.

When he curled up at the foot of Danarius' bed that night, like a guard animal, it took too long to fall into an uneasy sleep, full of faces he didn't recognize, things that should've been familiar but came utterly detached, meaningless.


	2. The Second Day

The next day he remained at Danarius side, silent, and staunchly refused to look directly at either of the brothers, even though he could _feel_ the elder's eyes on him and _wanted_ to meet that gaze, to challenge it. Why should _anyone_ look on him with anything so close to pity, even a senator? He knew his place, and he served in it well, took _pride_ in it. So he bristled, he _loomed_ instead of being purely unobtrusive. As far as he could tell, neither of them reacted any differently.

Late in the afternoon the elder Hawke and Danarius retired to the study again, and Carver didn't even try speaking to him this time, wandering off. They argued again, but Danarius didn't call for him. When Hawke stormed out this time, he looked briefly for Carver, and Fenris couldn't avoid his eyes this time.

Fortunately the magister's gaze didn't linger, as he went off in search of his brother, the same servant as yesterday scrambling to keep up with his comparatively long strides. Danarius followed shortly, an air of agitation radiating off him, the red fingers skittering across Fenris' mind like spider legs, like the scrape of nails _inside his skull_, and he winced at the pain, so much more intimate than anything Hadriana ever dared to do to him. But that was Danarius' right as his master, and if he needed to take his frustrations out in such a fashion Fenris would accept it.

"I will be in my lab again. You will do as you did yesterday; I don't wish to ruin you by proximity." Another caress, slicing down between the different parts of his brain, and Fenris' knees shook at the intensity. That he _could_ endure hours of this did not make it easier, and his eyes rolled to not quite catch Danarius' gaze, just his attention, a quiet plea in them. Tendrils of magic dug in for a moment, and for a second Fenris' body wasn't his own. A reminder, just long enough that when Danarius withdrew it left him echoing empty, disoriented for a moment. But Danarius was less upset afterward, and so it was worth a moment of pain and shame.

The lingering effects of that intimate violation he pushed aside under his exercises, as always. None of the hired soldiers Danarius kept on were willing to spar with him, so Fenris fought imaginary opponents out in the training yard. Qunari this time, for the novelty of it; distant memories of Seheron and Carver's words from the day before struck an uncharacteristic fancy in him. He didn't dare fight the Arishok; it wouldn't do to lose to a figment of his imagination.

When he finished his bruises from yesterday's punishment ached, the stripes along his back burned from the activity, stung with sweat, and Fenris quietly dreaded redressing the wounds. It involved snatching enough time and light with a mirror, _time_ being a luxury he had little of. He could, perhaps, skip a portion of his dinner and make the time there, but-

Only a sense of magic, a magister in close proximity, kept Fenris from bumping into the elder Hawke. He cursed himself silently for inobservance, for being caught in his own fancy, because if it had been Hadriana he'd be on the ground right now. He stopped an arm's length away, as if reaching a barrier, and looked up but carefully avoided the magister's eyes.

"You fight beautifully." Fenris accepted the breathless praise in silence, thinking little of it. "You're still hurting from the discipline yesterday, I could tell. Do you need help?"

Fenris mulled the question over, considering his options. If Hadriana noticed her handiwork undone, he would face twice the punishment after the guests left. She had been very careful not to damage the lyrium markings, and so he was in no real danger at the moment, though the welts left by her lash wept and the bandages he'd used were stiffening again. If he accepted healing, he would be better able to serve his master should something _unpleasant_ happen.

He looked up, meaning to say yes, and locked gaze with those blue eyes, saw himself under the same sort of tender care that had passed between the brothers the day before. It called up a host of emotions long suppressed, things that felt at once familiar and terribly alien, disjointed sensations that belonged to someone he no longer was.

Fenris ran. He _hid_, like a child from a closet terror, in Danarius' rooms, in his place by the foot of the bed. It was a place of relative safety, somewhere things were _certain_, where he knew his place and didn't have the fossilized remains of _what was before_ rolling through him. When his breathing had calmed and his limbs ceased trembling, he tried to examine it in a sort of sidelong way and came to realize that, no, in his isolation as Danarius' _favored_ slave he had not seen an instance of familial affection, or any sort of _sincere_ affection, that he could recall. No concern that was beyond Danarius' concern for a weighty investment, a prized bit of property. And why should it matter?

Because somebody had cared once, before he became what he was, and an old bitterness welled up at the thought that this _thing_ that was haunting him, this _want_, he had perhaps been in possession of it once. That bitterness fled when he felt those red fingers twist in his mind, a beckoning gesture. If Danarius had been the one to take it from him, then that was his master's right.

He found Danarius back in his favored study, hastily penning notes over his experiment. Without looking up or stopping in his writing Danarius stroked those tendrils of magic again, and Fenris found himself sitting in one of the chairs near the desk without meaning to.

"You are a keen observer, Fenris. Tell me," Danarius still didn't look up from his writing, "what you think of our guests."

"They are confusing," Fenris offered, watching Danarius' pen trail across the paper as a cat might watch another's tail twitching, the visual stimulus comforting.

"Confusing," Danarius echoed, a little laugh chasing under his breath. "That is perhaps the wisest answer anyone could give. Do you think they're dangerous, beyond the obvious?"

"Yes." _Oh, yes_, they were some of the most dangerous people Fenris had met, and not because of Carver's skill with a blade or the well of power Fenris had sensed when he strayed too close to Aodhan-he was more powerful than Danarius, blasphemous as the thought was. "They have an... air to them. It begs you to _trust_."

"At first I thought it was some sophisticated blood magic, something I couldn't sniff out, but no. It simply _is_. Leaving that boy in the senate will get the lot of us killed." Danarius finally stopped writing, set his pen aside gingerly, and made careful eye contact with Fenris. Those fingers in his mind tightened so that Fenris winced, but after his earlier bout of weakness this was almost comforting. "He has clearly taken an interest in you. I will send you to him tonight as a peace offering of sorts. Kill him while he sleeps. And the brother as well, if you can manage."

It was not a request, but a _command_, one burned into the rhythm of the blood coursing through him scribed by the magic tensed in his mind. It was all Fenris could do not to gasp when Danarius released him, slouching in the chair boneless for a moment. Danarius gave him a dismissive wave, and said, "The rest of the evening is yours to prepare. I recommend taking the same sort of steps you would before one of Hadriana's little indiscretions. He is, after all," though he did not smile there was a dark bit of mirth in Danarius' voice as he picked his pen back up, "not as delicately built as her companions."

ooooo

Aodhan had shooed off the slaves who'd tried to help him bathe, and was scowling to himself as he roughly toweled his hair, leaving it a mess of loose wet spikes in every which direction, thinking about Carver in the suite across the hall, probably taking advantage in some fashion of the attractive female slaves Danarius had sent them as they had brought no retainers of their own. It was meant to be a show of luxury, the smooth-skinned, limber elven women at their beck and call, and their _availability_ implied. He knew even Carver wouldn't go so far unless he was reasonably assured that the woman wasn't simply _performing her duty_. It was all a grand show of how gracious a host he was in the Tevinter fashion, and Aodhan was doing his damnedest not to be offended.

He was all but ready for bed when the knock came, and Aodhan cursed under his breath the unending nuisance of servants and slaves wanting to see to his every desire when what he _desired_ was to be _alone_. "Just a moment!" he shouted, and began rummaging about for some trousers-it was too hot in Tevinter to sleep clothed, and he was reasonably certain he'd convinced the servants he didn't need help dressing in the morning. He answered the door with his red hair bedraggled, wearing only a pair of low-slung trews of finely woven material, and hoped he looked properly miffed at the intrusion.

The slave with the markings was standing in the doorway, head bowed, and whatever Aodhan had meant to say or do fled him. He wasn't wearing his armor, just the leathers that went beneath it, and he didn't have his sword. Nor was Danarius anywhere to be seen, or anyone at all in the hallway for that matter. "Did you... _need_ something?"

The elf seemed to think about the question very carefully for a long moment before murmuring in his dark voice, clearly unused to much speech, "May I come in?" He looked up, but didn't meet Aodhan's eyes, looking more past the taller man's chin.

"Of course." Aodhan stepped aside, letting the elf in and shutting the door behind them. The elf trailed off to one side of the path between rooms, looking down still, nervous and quiet. "Did Danarius need something of me?" Aodhan ventured.

The elf turned, and with his head bowed his shaggy white hair hid any glimpse Aodhan might've had of those gorgeous moss-green eyes, kept any clues he might glean about the elf's purpose neatly veiled. "The Master... sent me to you. For the night."

"Oh," slipped out a sort of non-committal recognition, before _real_ understanding hit him. The elf finally looked up at him, those deep eyes catching his for just a moment. "_Oh._ No, that's not necessary, I don't-"

"I... if you're not interested, I will leave." The way the elf tilted his head exposed a gorgeous expanse of dark and tattooed skin along his neck, the gesture somehow vulnerable. "The Master simply assumed, from your attention, and the fact that you have sent your attendants away so adamantly when your brother has not sent his off... I apologize if this is an offense."

"Yes. I mean-no, I'm not offended. It's just... I'm not interested in a sacrifice. I only take willing partners to my bed, no slaves."

"I am willing." The elf took a single step forward, a bold motion. "I exist only to serve, and if this is what my master wishes of me I will _gladly_ do it. I would disobey and take his punishment, otherwise."

"He's a _blood mage_," Aodhan said flatly, and the way he said the phrase stopped Fenris' little saunter. "And you're clearly a thrall. Of _course_ you want to please him. _Maker_, he could be controlling you right now for all I know. He could use you like a _puppet_ to..." Aodhan trailed off, a sick taste in his mouth, as that line of thought had gone far enough.

"You're... _not_ a blood mage?" By his tone this was apparently a novel idea, one unconsidered. "How are you a member of the senate?"

"The old fashioned way; shaking hands and sucking cocks. I meant that last one _figuratively_, mind," he quickly amended. "I've known a few blood mages outside Tevinter. It _never_ ends well; your demon always comes to collect his fees in the end."

"I see." He _didn't_, though, Aodhan could tell the talk washed over him, that he could conceive of no other system. "If you do not desire my services, then I will return to my Master."

"Wait." Aodhan stopped short of touching the elf, but stayed him with a hand when he tried to leave. "Will Danarius punish you for returning so soon?"

"No," the elf said, and Aodhan breathed a sigh of relief. "But Hadriana will."

_Too soon._ "Stay, then. We'll do something other than have a tumble. If you want to tell them we didn't sleep together tomorrow, that's fine, but it will be on your hands instead of mine."

The elf lingered, shifting nervously, his eyes flicking up to make contact, briefly, before looking away. "What would we do?"

_With that voice you could sing me to sleep,_ but Aodhan said no such thing, afraid of complimenting the slave in such a fashion. "Does it matter? Something relatively innocent." When the elf took a step back, bowing his head and nodding his assent, Aodhan finally relaxed. "Are you still hurting?" The elf nodded again. "May I treat your wounds?" Another moment of hesitation, and the elf nodded a little more emphatically. "Off with the leathers, then, anywhere you're hurt."

While the elf stripped out of the leathers and padding Aodhan set up two chairs facing each other. One he bade the elf sit backwards in, and he himself sat properly in the other, such that he was facing the elf's back, where the damage apparently was. The bandages were fresh, and underneath them the wounds immaculate. With a little smile, unseen by the elf, Aodhan quipped, "You must be very flexible."

There was a nervous little quiver to the elf's shoulders, and he flinched away from any touch-not in pain-so Aodhan kept skin contact to a minimum. "What's your name, if I'm permitted to know?"

"Fenris," the elf breathed, his dark voice rolling out the word in a fashion that made Aodhan want to _taste_ it. This fruit was forbidden, though, a _possession_ more than a _person_ right now.

"Well, Fenris, you're not half bad at dressing wounds." Aodhan wasn't going to carry that thought to its logical conclusion, and simply worked his magic into the flesh, knitting the wounds and leaving unblemished skin behind. There were bruises, too, and the muscles of Fenris' back were tense in a way that would injure him later. It wasn't his place to ask for such intimate contact as would heal those deeper-seated wounds, though, and he wasn't a proper healer anyway-a little smile ghosted across Aodhan's lips at the memory of when Anders had compared his bluntness to cousin Amell's finesse, at the memory of the phrase, "heals like a sledgehammer". "All done."

He had no way of knowing how close Fenris had come to running, how hard it was for the slave to contain himself. Fenris wasn't the least bit afraid of Aodhan-the man could do nothing novel to him, after all-but for a moment he had fooled himself that this was more than a prelude to manipulation, that this concern and gentle manner was genuine. Only Danarius' instructions, written in blood across his brain, had kept him in the chair.

"Have you ever played Wicked Grace?" Aodhan abruptly asked, standing and moving his chair back to its proper place. After a calming breath Fenris shook his head. "I'll show you."

Fenris ended up curled on a divan in the front room of the suite, listening very, very carefully for Aodhan's breath to turn even and slow. And afterward he counted out half an hour, waiting for the magister to be firmly asleep before he crawled from beneath the little nest of blankets granted him and slipped back into his leathers, padded silently into the bedroom.

The drapes were open, moonlight cutting great swathes out of the darkness, and illuminating Aodhan in a light so like that of the Fade. He slept on top of the bedding; that made it easier.

It was almost a relief, Fenris thought, as he crept up onto the edge of the bed, disturbing not so much as a stitch. Once this foreigner was gone things could go back to normal. He wouldn't be driven to question or want things beyond him, the memories just beyond his reach would settle back into place and stop tormenting him with their vague forms. _Yes,_ Fenris decided he could take some satisfaction in this one, phasing one hand into the Fade, meaning to make quick work of the sleeping man by stilling his heart in his chest. He lunged forward.

And found himself collapsed on the floor with no memory of the intervening moments, electric agony trailing up and down his limbs, spasms wracking him. He knew what had happened, but his limbs were beyond his power, the lightning coursing through his veins as surely as any blood magic. He lay in the shadow between two swathes of moonlight, on bare floor instead of one of the rugs, and that seemed so very _important_. Fenris tried to clench his teeth to keep from voicing his pain, but his breath hitched on the full-body spasms, making involuntary gasps. This wasn't the first time he'd been hit with lightning, but it was certainly the _worst_. He hoped he could retain enough control to keep from voiding himself.

Aodhan knelt over him, face partially obscured in the half-darkness, but those pale eyes burned with a cold fire. Fenris lunged again, swiping with his hand half in the Fade, fighting the spasms, but Aodhan grabbed him above the elbow and drained him as Hadriana had. He couldn't help but cry out now, going limp, because it left him with _nothing_ but an aching hollow, worse than what either his master or the apprentice normally did.

That same magic that had been warm and gentle in healing his wounds rushed forward, cold and blue and reeking of the Fade, flooding his mind with ice and clashing with the knife-sharp fire of Danarius' blood magic. Fenris started to scream, arching up off the floor, until a hand covered his mouth and muffled the sound.

"_Fuck_. Your mind's locked up tighter than a Grand Cleric's thighs." The words washed over him, meaningless in his agony as the ice flooded his mind, lightning still shooting through limbs, and the ice crashed over Danarius' magic like a great wave and _obliterated_ those red tendrils. It sought out every part of him, and by the end of it Fenris was sobbing, trying to mewl around the hand over his mouth, "_Master!_" Because only silence followed the ice, and he was truly alone in his own mind.

When the hand moved Fenris tried to rise, batting at the man who had just so thoroughly savaged that sacred bond, but his motions were sluggish, disoriented, the ice inside his head chilling him through and the lingering spasms making his motions jerky. Everything suddenly felt _heavy_ and he collapsed back, struggling just to breath.

"You move or you cry out, and I'll kill Danarius." The glint of moonlight in those pale eyes-he _meant it_, oh, by everything beyond the Fade he _meant it_, so Fenris stayed still, tried to keep quiet as possible. Aodhan disappeared.

In the silence that followed Fenris turned himself inward, groped for any vestiges of those red tendrils, prayed to his master's Maker and Old Gods for some way to contact Danarius, that someone would come by to check on his progress, had heard the struggle, even Hadriana, _anyone_. Instead Aodhan returned with Carver, they made short work of the mage's things as if they were used to vacating places quickly. Aodhan threw open one of the windows.

"You're kidding," Carver said, looking from the open window and the billowing curtains to Aodhan incredulously.

"Jump or I'll _throw you_. Trust me." Aodhan gestured, as if in afterthought. "And grab him."

"So now we're _stealing_. Why?"

"_Leverage._ That much lyrium and his training are worth at least as much as this whole estate. If Danarius won't cooperate for profit we'll squeeze him for it."

The heaviness of Fenris' limbs lifted as Carver picked him up to sling him over a shoulder, and he heard the younger brother mutter, "Just weak for a handsome face and a cavalier in distress," accusatory against Aodhan. Aodhan scowled, as if he heard, but said nothing, gathering up their things and standing at the window while Carver jumped.

There was only a moment of freefall, just long enough to turn Fenris' already souring stomach, and their fall slowed the closer they got to the ground. It smelled of the magic that had held him pinned to the floor, and they landed gently. Aodhan followed after, falling in the same fashion, and when he reached the ground put his hand on the back of Fenris' head. "I'm sorry."

After a jarring sensation like a blow without the pain, Fenris blacked out.


	3. The Third Day

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><p>Waking in a <em>bed<em> brought an immediate pang of panic, and Fenris very intently remainedstill, kept his breathing even, tried to take stock in his surroundings before giving a sign that he was awake. He had been stripped of his armor and was wearing soft trews and a tunic, both a bit too big. He felt as though he had been asleep for quite some time, and he felt _clean_, which was distressing enough on its own. After a few moments of listening he was reasonably assured that no one else was in the room.

And after a few moments of wracking his brain, he was reasonably assured that his sacred bond to Danarius was utterly shattered.

Rather than let fear really set in Fenris opened his eyes, sat up and examined his surroundings. The room was richly appointed in vibrant colors, shades of green and blue, but not opulent. It was not decorated in a particularly Tevinter style (there wasn't nearly enough marble or precious metal chasing mundane objects), but one that seemed more southern to his inexpert eye. There was no guard in the bed chamber, so he hauled himself out bed, stretching his sleep-stiff muscles as he inspected the room. There were no windows, the walls and door were too thick to phase through, there was no sign of any of his equipment, but the door wasn't locked. After listening for a moment Fenris was reasonably assured no one was on the other side and opened the door, peeking out cautiously.

It was a modest sized parlor, appointed in a similar fashion, and as he stepped out to begin his investigation the door on the opposite side opened. Fenris stopped, stock-still, to see a young human woman stepping in, wearing a simple blue gown that was nonetheless cut to reveal her ample form. Dark curls framed her face, spilling down over her shoulders, and her skin was pale and delectable-looking as the flesh of an apple. She carried a tray that appeared to be piled with a generous amount of food, and when she noticed him her ruby lips curled up into an innocent smile, her almost-amber eyes brightened as she set the tray aside on a small table.

"We were starting to think Aodhan hit you too hard. I swear, he's as bad as Carver sometimes. Anyway, are you-" Her words died in a strangled sound when Fenris darted across the room, wrapped his hand around her throat and _squeezed_. This close he sensed magic on her, but there wasn't time—he threw her aside, left her choking and gasping on the floor, and ran into the hallway beyond her.

Fenris passed servants, left them screaming in the halls and crying out for, "Master Aodhan!" or "Mistress!" One woman with an armful of cry linens he bowled over, and fabric filled the hall for a moment. Carver darted out of another hallway, dove at him to tackle him, but Fenris _focused_, as strongly as he ever had before, and phased through Carver's dive without leaving so much as a scratch. Carver tumbled ass over head on the floor behind him, mostly unscathed save his pride. Not that Fenris paid more than a glance to see if he'd hurt the man—the thoughts and emotions that _led_to those actions almost made him stop.

Almost.

Fenris eventually found himself taking a set of stairs three at a time, sliding more than walking down them, into a great entry hall with a strange crest over the door in red. And the Magister who'd stolen him stood in the open doorway, beyond which Fenris saw open ground. He was so close he could _taste it_, the salt in the air that told him they were very near the coast smelled like _freedom_, and he could return to Danarius. Only this Magister stood in the way.

When he went to plunge a phased hand through the Magister's chest Aodhan grabbed his arm above the elbow, where it was still solid, and _pulled_ power from him. Fenris collapsed on the spot, though momentum still carried him into the Magister's arms. He fought feebly; Aodhan had pulled as hard as a very angry Hadriana, and it left him breathless, seeing stars, but he wouldn't _give in_.

"Stop." But he didn't, because this wasn't his master, no tendrils of red power stroked his mind. "Andraste's tits, _stop it_ or you won't see Danarius again." Which was just the right threat. Fenris stilled, looking up at his captor, who pushed him away to stand on his own. Only once he was out of Aodhan's grip did he realize how _strong_ the man was, unlike a typical magister. "Listen to me. I know you're _afraid_ You can't _feel_ him anymore, can you?" Fenris shook his head, unwilling to speak to the man just yet, angry and frightened beyond anything he could recall, and betrayed by those sincere eyes which he couldn't tear himself away from now. "You want to go back. That's fine. But we'll do it _properly_, alright? With some measure of decorum. That's the only way to mend the problems between Danarius and myself. Stay with us for a week, as a _guest_, not a slave. And we'll return you to Danarius at the end of that week, alright?"

Fenris nodded his assent. Surely in a week there would be a _better_chance to escape—he would wait for the opportune moment.

Carver came skidding into the room, and scoffed loudly at the sight of the two of them standing in the door, Aodhan's hands still on Fenris' shoulders to keep him steady—turning to see Carver still unbalanced the elf a little. "Right, nothing to see here." The woman who'd been in his room stumbled in, a hand to her throat and the other against the wall. Carver was at her side instantly, trying to steady her but otherwise uncertain.

"Bethany." Hardly more than a thin thread of breath behind the name, but all that concern was back in those blue eyes when Fenris looked up at the Magister, his emotions so very _open_as he brushed past the elf. Aodhan went to her as Carver steered her towards a bench against the wall, examining the bruise blooming across her pale neck without touching it. Fenris winced, even as that gentle blue glow leaped eagerly to the Magister's fingers and the bruises smoothed away—he had done that to her.

And Aodhan had left him alone in the doorway. _Nothing_ stood between Fenris and his freedom. He turned to look out, and he could hear gently spilling waves somewhere nearby, as if they were just over the dunes from the beach. He got the distinct impression that he hadn't been _forgotten_, but that the woman's safety—he could tell now, having seen them together, that she was so similar to Carver that they must be siblings—was more important than him remaining in the Magister's grasp.

Fenris didn't understand. He still recalled what Aodhan had said as they were escaping Danarius' mansion-_leverage_-and Fenris knew exactly what he was. Danarius would've sacrificed much, including the comfort, safety, or well-being of anyone in his employ, even Hadriana or Fenris, valuable as they were. He looked back to them, unable to look away as Aodhan healed his sister, as Carver comforted her by patting her hand. Her not-quite-amber eyes drifted to catch his gaze, and Fenris didn't look away quickly enough—she saw that _desire_, his _envy_of them. And she smiled, not the predatory smile of one who saw a weakness, but something gentler, something he didn't understand.

Fenris didn't run.

And he didn't try to run in the night, when he was sure everyone was asleep. Servants had brought him dinner that evening, and when he asked they told him that, no, there were no slaves in the household. Both human and elven servants treated him alike, though most of them had the same strange accent the Hawke family had. Servants drew up a bath for him, and brought him more comfortable clothing in roughly his size. No one knew where his leathers were.


	4. The Fourth Day

A/N: **I am offering literature commissions.** Money has been tight lately, so I've been busy a lot more often. If writing starts making even a piddling amount of money, I get to do more of it. **Check it out here: dA **

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><p>Old things long ago discarded haunted his dreams, and fantasies of tenderness. When Fenris woke his head felt stuffy, full of nonsense he was determined not to indulge.<p>

Bethany returned that morning with a little silver tray, wearing another fine robe that showed off her exquisite body. "I'm in one piece and you're still here, so I hope there's no hard feelings between us." She smiled brightly as sunshine, but Fenris stayed where he was in the doorway, watching her warily as she swept across the room, taking in the dramatic sway of her hips with an almost academic appreciation. She sat the tray on a table in the parlor, in front of a divan, and settled herself in a comfortable-looking chair across from it. "Well, come on, I can't eat all this by myself."

He stalked over, walking around behind the divan to view the scene before sitting, moving like a nervous dog. Nothing was certain here, and it made him leery, made him strain for clues as to how he should behave and what the woman was expecting of him. He longed to be back at Danarius' side, comfortable, _safe_.

The plate was piled with fresh fruit, sweet breads, and a dish of cream—a rich meal for a slave, but Aodhan had called him a _guest_and they apparently meant to treat him as such. Bethany helped herself once he was seated, eating delicately, and Fenris followed suit, eating slowly and savoring the flavors, as this was expected of him.

"So are you from Tevinter?" Bethany bit into a strawberry, licked a stray bit of red juice and cream from her bottom lip in a way that might've been accidentally tantalizing—save that Fenris was as afraid of her as he was of Aodhan. She was quite clearly the household's Hadriana.

"I was from Seheron," he offered, because polite conversation seemed expected, and she had asked a direct question. "So I am told."

She nodded knowingly, sympathetically. "And have you been with Danarius long? You must have been, to be so eager to get back to him."

"Always. I know nothing before I came into Master Danarius' service." Fenris swallowed, and reached for another piece of fruit, careful of the juice, not wanting to spill anything on the fine fabrics. "And I am eager to return to him because-"

After a moment of silence Bethany prompted, "Because...?"

No answer came right away. Because... because Danarius was _familiar_, and the strangeness of the way the Hawkes treated him was frightening. Because Danarius protected him from... He couldn't even finish _that_thought, shame burning through him. He should be able to defend his Master's honor before his own, but without those red tendrils dug into his mind he couldn't find much to say about Danarius. "He is fair," Fenris finally managed. "And I am obedient."

Bethany swallowed her delicate bite of fruit, and gave him a look that was mostly unreadable. "I suppose if someone feels it is his place to serve, then _fair_ is one of the better things to have in a master."

The conversation turned elsewhere, Bethany filling the air with just enough meaningless talk to keep Fenris from getting too nervous, mostly about Ferelden and their more recent home, Kirkwall. She asked small questions about his service to Danarius, little innocuous things that didn't make much sense until the conversation was almost over.

So Fenris decided to react in kind. If he was going to be stuck here, he may as well bring back something useful. "Am I permitted to leave the room?"

"Of course!" she said, smiling brightly, as if pleased with the question. "Would you like me to show you around so you don't get lost?" Fenris nodded, looking up at her meekly.

Bethany didn't bother with the private areas, which was to be expected, but she took him to all the places he expected, keeping up a little line of polite chatter. He followed meekly, acting the demure slave, uncertain of his surroundings-

Fenris stumbled when he missed a step, realizing that he _was_ acting. He _stopped_ acting then, and it was real for a little while, as he burned with shame at the thought that he had so little self control away from Danarius. He _needed_those red fingers of magic twisting in his mind to give him direction.

She took him through the kitchens and out to a training yard where she informed him he was free to use it at any time as long as he didn't slip off, and if he was ever hungry he should feel free to pester the cooks, particularly if they took a liking to him. They passed through a stable with a number of what, to Fenris' inexpert estimation, appeared to be very stately horses, and Bethany explained that Carver had taken a liking to the beasts now that the family was finally settled down, and even though Aodhan held the purse strings he was terribly weak when it came to indulging his siblings. That information was filed away for later use.

They came back in through what, from the outside, appeared to be the most grandiose room Fenris had ever seen—it looked to be made almost entirely of large panes of glass, with shutters that could be pulled across to protect the glass in bad weather. They entered through a set of doors, which were themselves just shuttered glass, and on the inside the room was possibly _more_opulent, full of plants Fenris didn't recognize—which really didn't mean much—with an unpolished slate floor and little paths through the greenery. The room was kept a comfortable temperature, by magic Fenris assumed, which was not a simple thing to do, as Danarius had only a handful of rooms in his estate that remained a constant temperature. Much of the greenery was at least shoulder height, so the room felt very private and closed in, and even though Bethany was right in front of him Fenris felt everyone who entered the room was in a way alone.

"You're free to come in here any time you like, but I wouldn't linger too long or come down here late at night. This room is the only thing Aodhan's let himself have, and we try not to bother him when he's in here."

Fenris almost forgot to consider how he might take advantage of such knowledge. If the Magister came down here often, alone, then it would be a good place for Danarius to find him if it came to an assault on the mansion. The fight played out in his mind, Danarius and Aodhan resorting to their natural defenses, Fenris more or less useless against the senator—because he would be—and the exchange of magic blew out the windows, destroyed the plants, shattered the floor. Chewing at his bottom lip anxiously, Fenris stopped that line of thought before a clear winner came out.

Then reassured himself that Danarius would win as they returned to the mansion's halls. All this sentiment was unnatural, never mind that the portrait he was being shown of Aodhan's life was of a man very difficult to hate. Even Danarius' mansion reflected the image he wished to project of himself, so that no visitor might glean a piece of information he could use against the Magister, no such thing as a private life at his level of political sway. That this foreigner was somehow a junior senator and by all appearances turned out every eccentricity in his home, for all to see, even a lowly slave stolen from a rival-

Fenris didn't like the man one bit. He was more dangerous than Fenris or Danarius had guessed. Either this was the cleverest ruse yet constructed in hiding a man's true nature, or he truly felt he had nothing to hide.

They walked the width and breadth of the mansion and shared a late lunch/early dinner with Carver. Aodhan was distinctly absent, and when Fenris found his voice to politely ask about it (it was hard to speak up without prompting, because _that _had been beaten into him by the years instead of just blood magic, but he had to discover these things for Danarius and questions wouldn't ask themselves), Bethany told him, "Aodhan is under the impression that his presence upsets you. He wants you to be at ease here."

Which was perfectly ridiculous, and Fenris frowned to himself, something that might one day become a righteous scowl. Carver shared the sentiment apparently, and scoffed. "He doesn't want to get his hopes up, you mean."

"You shouldn't say those sorts of things, Carver!"

Both elbows on the table, Carver gestured accusingly with his knife, eyes narrowed. "Did he _tell you_ what happened?"

Bethany bristled, sitting up straighter and clearly _trying_ not to glare at her brother. "No, but I hardly see why it should matter. What's done is done and Aodhan-"

"Danarius sent him to Aodhan's room for a quick seduce-and-shank. Now I dare you to say the thought _didn't_ cross Aodhan's mind."

"Aodhan would never-"

"_Would's_ got nothing to do with it. Unless you mean _wood_. We both know Aodhan's queer as a two-headed sovereign and fancies just about anyone who looks like they could tie him in a knot. After fighting _him_," Carver jabbed the knife in Fenris' direction as a gesture and Fenris almost jumped out of his seat, ready to wield the chair in his own defense if necessary, "I can assure you, he could tie _anybody_ in a bloody knot. Just because Aodhan's got _morals_ doesn't mean he hasn't got _desires_."

"What I _meant_," Bethany was clenching her teeth now, and when she glanced briefly to Fenris he felt a little singe of magic in the air, "is that you shouldn't _talk_ about it in such _great detail_ in front of our _guest_."

Carver looked from her to Fenris, who was still eying the knife Carver had been jabbing with, and Carver retreated properly into his own seat, settled his hands on the table. "Oh." The rest of dinner passed calmly.

Which was a shame, really. That had been the most information he'd gathered about his elusive host all day. Fenris stayed in his room the rest of the evening, insecure with having free run of the place. That, of course, left him alone with his thoughts, which were growing increasingly more emotional and complicated with time. The memories were now vague shapes with hazy colors, dull sounds, but if he tried to conjure them up willfully they vanished. He slept fitfully, not properly tired and lacking Danarius' magic to touch that part deep inside his mind to _put_ him to sleep when necessary, unused to the soft bed, plagued by dreams that on waking were elusive as those memories. Worst of all, he missed the sound of Danarius' breathing, the presence of another person in the room.


	5. The Fifth Day

A/N: This is nearly the end of what's been written so far. This was originally produced for the kmeme, and I stopped it because the kmeme's wank levels have drastically increased since DA2 came out, and I'm not down with that. If there's enough interest in it here I'll continue, though my DA:O fic will remain my priority.

Commissions are still open, details here.

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><p>He woke early, and chose to test his boundaries, slipping out of the house to examine the grounds beyond what he and Bethany had walked. Fenris went towards the sound of gently spilling surf, and after about twenty minutes from the door found himself standing on a beach, wet sand squelching between his toes. Tiny brown jellyfish had washed up in the pre-dawn, the sky was still a little gray, the air cool, and everything had a calm to it, the like of which he hadn't known since...<p>

Ever.

For a while he walked the beach, until the sun was properly up, and just let that fill him, the sound of the waves and the stillness of heart, the morning breeze in the reeds on the dunes. When he finally turned to go he noticed another set of footprints in the sand on the dunes, and when he crested them saw Aodhan's unmistakeable auburn hair as he retreated into the house. Had the Magister followed him out to keep an eye on him, or something more (or perhaps less) innocent? After their talk at Danarius' mansion he was certain Aodhan wouldn't lay a finger on him, but that didn't make his attentions any less... _distressing_. In Fenris' experience, magisters took what they wanted, and this one would surely succumb once he realized what he wanted wasn't even Fenris' to _give_.

The day passed much as the one before it had, and by the time dinner came around Fenris was hoping for another argument between brother and sister to break the monotony. He got no such thing, only polite conversation—insomuch as Carver could manage polite conversation—and when Bethany innocently asked, "Are you comfortable here?" Fenris snapped.

"It's the height of cruelty, to treat a slave like they could be something more."

Brother and sister stared at him for a moment before regaining their composure. Any further discussion left him openings but never directly addressed him, and Fenris ate in gloomy silence.

He spent most of the evening in the training yard, fighting invisible opponents with his bare hands, tearing out throats and crushing vital organs to his heart's contentment. Yet, tired as he was from the exertion he found no rest that night. Behind his eyelids he saw Aodhan's retreating form, in the silence he heard the gentle concern in Bethany's voice, the awkward attempts at camaraderie Carver made. The morning's ocean calm was gone from his heart, replaced by the most savage of storms. He was _bored_. And Fenris had never been bored before, or really, truly discontent. It was a luxury long denied him. And it felt good, in a way. It was novel.

Novel wouldn't help him sleep, so Fenris pulled himself from the comfortable bed and dressed enough so as not to invite any unwanted attention. Wandering feet led him through the halls, still not particularly familiar to him, until he came to the room with the plants. He went to the center of the room and sank down to the floor, staring up through the greenery and the clear panes of glass to the stars, so very vivid here near the ocean, away from Minrathous. Had he ever looked up, at Danarius' mansion...?

"There's a pair of divans," Aodhan's voice startled him up into a defensive crouch, and he spun around to find the man half-dressed, wearing only simple trews not too unlike his own, just a darker color, "this way."

Those pale blue eyes made a careful point of avoiding his own mossy green ones, and so Fenris followed, out of curiosity and habit, as he was used to following a magister around. But he didn't wait for Aodhan's invitation to sit once they'd circled around the side of the room, a cozy little corner with two indistinctly dark colored divans. Aodhan took the other, lifting a blanket from it first and curling his fist into the fabric. After an uncertain moment Aodhan laid down on the divan, which was just sized such that he wouldn't fall off, and curled up with his back to Fenris.

"You aren't worried about me?"

"If you try to kill me, I'll either stop you or I won't. Its simple as that. If you were going to run away you would've done so this morning. So no, I'm not worried, not in that sense."

"Not in that sense?" The Magister was easier to talk to like this, because Fenris wasn't looking at a magister, he was looking at a tired man trying to find some comfort in a peaceful place, the slouch of his shoulders more telling than anything else in the house so far.

Nothing happened for a long moment, and once Fenris was reasonably certain Aodhan was ignoring him he took a deep breath, taking in the green smell and the comfortably cool air. When he looked up the stars were still winking at him prettily, and he wondered if they had names for the shapes some of them made.

When he looked back down Aodhan had rolled over onto his back, hands behind his head, and was looking up as well. "Bethany tells me you don't remember anything from before Danarius made you as you are."

"That is correct."

"Do you ever wonder about it? If you had family, how you became a slave? If you were born to it or not?"

_Now I do,_but Fenris wasn't about to tell him that. "No. Its not my place to question."

A few breaths worth of silence followed, then, "I envy you," quietly. "There are days... when I would rather not remember where I came from. No matter where I go, it will never be Lothering."

"Then go back," escaped him before Fenris thought about it too much. "You won't need to mend things with Danarius that way."

"Its gone," Aodhan whispered. His voice sounded tight, and his eyes seemed distant, as if he were somewhere else. "They say you can never go home. Its true." Another few moments of quiet, and Aodhan cleared his throat, then spoke more confidently, but still quiet in respect of the night's stillness. "I... have a strange question for you."

"I'm a _slave_," Fenris spat bitterly, irritated with the man's behavior—and, he was surprised to find, with his _own _expectations. "You don't need permission to ask me questions."

"No slave would take that sort of tone with anyone but a fellow slave," Aodhan quipped, and he smiled slyly when Fenris stiffened. "You're not a slave until we send you back. You can take whatever tone you like."

"Then get your question over with," Fenris bit the words off harshly, "and torment me no more."

"It can wait for another day, so long as it gets asked before you leave. Its the wrong time of night for that sort of discussion." Aodhan sounded tired in more than just body, a resigned sigh under his voice. "You should probably get to sleep. I can show you back to your room if you need."

"I am not used to a bed," Fenris answered, snapping at the Magister as if these were things he should've known. "The room is not particularly restful."

"Sleep right there if you want." Aodhan gestured weakly to the divan where Fenris sat. "If you can stand to be in the same room as me that long."

"You sleep in here?"

"The house is too quiet. This room at least has an excuse."

Fenris had nothing to say to that, too surprised that the Magister didn't at the very least claim the room solely for his own and move his things in. But then, just taking a spot on a floor wasn't the same as sleeping at the foot of Danarius' bed—there was so much more to it, and no matter how much he wanted it that incredibly comfortable bed was utterly ruined for him. But surely that was by design, that he couldn't take pleasure in even small things.

Without the red fingers twisted in his mind Fenris was coming to understand the control had been deeper. If Danarius were gone permanently—and he still winced at the idea—he would be dealing with the aftermath for years, and Fenris even doubted he could properly integrate into society if he were suddenly a free man. Blood magic was only part of it, so bound up in _duty_ and _desire_ that without it his _motivation_ for serving Danarius willingly was falling apart. He had never been just another man before, never been anyone's equal, and though he played at games of manipulation and spat in their faces that was precisely what the Hawke family was doing. They were honest about it, at least Carver and Bethany—Fenris was thoroughly convinced the only person in the house who _wasn't_ honest and who was any threat at all to him was currently sitting across from him, pale blue eyes closed.

He _liked _it. He liked going where he wanted within reason, taking his meals when he grew hungry or at the appropriate times instead of waiting on his master's leisure, and snapping at people when they displeased or annoyed him. It seemed much more organic, more fulfilling, despite the boredom. A great yawn interrupted Fenris' brooding, one he feared might crack his jaw apart, and he was surprised at his own sudden sleepiness, wondered what might've caused it.

In the silence, he noticed as soon as he turned his attention outward again: steady, soft breathing. He watched Aodhan's chest subtly rise and fall in the night's dim, and wondered about the concern and unguarded emotion the man treated him with.

Fenris curled up on the divan, and slept a dreamless sleep, lulled into peace by the sound of breath.


	6. The Sixth Day

A/N: Last full chapter I have written. I was never really writing this story for myself, I was writing it for the kmeme, so I'm only interested in it if other people are.

I'm offering literary commissions, link in my profile.

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><p>Fenris woke slowly for perhaps the first time in memory, noting first the delicate chill of the air contrasted with the exquisite warmth of sun on his skin. The padding beneath him was comfortable, <em>just firm enough<em>, and a soft blanket wrapped around him, a corner of it clutched fiercely in one hand and drawn up under his chin. The blanket smelled faintly of a very masculine scent that belonged to someone else, struck through with the ozone tang of magic; the air around him smelled _green_.

He wouldn't have noticed any of these things before, save to note them as details of his environment. Such joys had all been gray and dull beyond the knife-sharp red of his duty to Danarius. Only one thing had mattered: serving, _pleasing_. Now Fenris wallowed in the sun's warmth and the comfortable give of the divan's cushion, and wished for a place like this back in Danarius' mansion, and then the right to use it. He _knew_he would never have either, though, and so reveled in it now. They'd be returning him in a few days, after all.

The sun was suddenly too warm, the green smell too sweet, the divan too soft, so Fenris sat up, looking around for his elusive host. He heard running water in the room somewhere, and stood, stalking around the winding paths that made the room seem so much larger than it was until he found Aodhan seeing to the plants with a watering can, humming very softly.

Fenris opened his mouth to get the Magister's attention—and suddenly stopped, remembering his place. So instead he stood quietly until Aodhan turned, expecting the Magister had noticed him and was simply ignoring him for the time being making him uncomfortable. When he turned, Aodhan startled, nearly dropping the water can, and then laughed, nervously. "You're quiet as a chantry mouse."

"I'm sorry. I will make more noise in the future." He was worried, privately, afraid of reprisal, but Aodhan was smiling.

"If its your way to be quiet, be quiet." Aodhan tucked the watering can away in between two planters and said, by way of invitation, "I'm heading down to the beach." Fenris walked with the Magister, only consoling himself with the idea that he was still gathering information, looking for weaknesses—even he didn't truly believe it any more.

They walked down the beach in relative silence, Fenris just a step behind and listening to the gently spilling waves, watching the little long-legged birds poke about with their long beaks. He was trying to figure out just what they were snatching up when Aodhan stopped, and Fenris nearly ran into him. Looking up, Fenris found that the Magister was looking down along the beach, a strange sort of longing on his face.

"How does this place make you feel?"

"I'm sorry?" The question surprised him, confused him—Fenris wasn't sure what sort of response was appropriate.

"It makes me want to start walking and not stop until I'm done. If I don't end up somewhere better, at least it will be somewhere different." Aodhan turned a little, looked down at Fenris with a gentle smile that only showed in his pale blue eyes, and Fenris didn't look away in time.

_I want to _run. But he stood his ground, didn't turn away even though facing that kindness was at least as frightening as Hadriana's worst indiscretions. "What I feel is irrelevant."

"I'm not asking what you've been _taught_. I'm asking what you _want_." Aodhan gestured awkwardly, and Fenris got the feeling the Magister had been about to put a hand on his shoulder. Fenris wasn't sure if he wanted _that_. "You don't have to answer right away."

By the time they'd returned to the mansion Fenris felt he'd come up with a suitable answer and tentatively offered, "I want to know where I stand here."

"You're a free man, for a few days. We don't have slaves in Ferelden and I wouldn't keep one."

"But I can't leave." Aodhan stopped, looked back at him. "If I'm not a slave, then I'm at least a prisoner."

"But you can leave." Aodhan's voice came soft, a gentle smile curling his lips subtly, something about it at once comforting and unsettling. "No one here would stop you."

As Aodhan walked away what he had been saying suddenly made sense: so long as Fenris chose to remain, he _had_the choice. If he left, the choice would be made for him by others. He was a prisoner, and Aodhan was not his jailer.

And yet... the action that removed all agency from his own hands was the _right_ one. The one that, now that he thought about it in this context, didn't sound so wonderful any more. Hadriana would give him a thorough welcoming home—probably a _party_, knowing her—and Fenris looked forward to his return less and less.

Pondering his options, Fenris followed Aodhan, withdrawing into himself in a way he'd never had the luxury of in Danarius' service. Without those red fingers twisted in his brain and the press of service, _only service and nothing else_, he could examine these strange and frighteningly broken pieces of himself as much as he needed to. Aodhan left him to his silence, though Fenris realized now why he rarely saw the man if this was his routine—he ate in the kitchens, with the head cook harassing him playfully and a bustle around them as the cooks worked on meals for everyone who helped keep the villa and the grounds in good shape. There were no slaves, and the air here was different, more playful. If anyone looked as if they were about to bother Fenris Aodhan glared them down, but it was a warning, not a threat.

And he followed the Magister quietly when they left, because it seemed so natural now that he was in the pattern of it—familiar enough to be comforting, though he didn't want to examine the reasons for that. They ended up in a study, where Aodhan gestured for him to sit in a comfortable, plush chair. After a few minutes of idly shuffling papers around on a desk Aodhan cleared his throat.

"You can't read, can you?" Fenris was showing a great deal more interest in the overstuffed bookshelves that lined the room than Aodhan would've expected, especially after his quiet, introspective manner since re-entering the villa.

"No." Fenris said it quite simply, still seeming distracted. "Have you read all of these?"

"Most," he said, and Fenris could tell by how worn some of the books seemed, as if they had travelled a great distance. "They're not for show, if that's what you're asking."

"Danarius has such a room, as I'm sure you saw." Something about Fenris' voice was far away, still distracted. "He does no real work in it; anything printed worth having he keeps in a private study."

"As most magisters, from what I've seen. I have no secret techniques hidden in musty old tomes; anything I don't want to share is up here," Aodhan tapped one finger against his temple, smiling as if this were some great joke. "Anyway. I was asking because you seem to be trained in a number of things slaves aren't supposed to learn. Of course Danarius wouldn't do you that courtesy. You don't have to follow me about obediently all day, you can do what you please. But if you're going to insist on it..." Aodhan wandered over to a particular shelf and pulled a battered book from a row of slender, clearly much-loved volumes. "A friend of mine in Kirkwall was a great spinner of tales. He sends me his stories when he can... these are ones I brought with me. If you don't mind." Fenris wasn't quite sure what Aodhan was getting at, but he nodded obediently, giving the assent the Magister seemed to be asking for. Aodhan sat down in a comfortable chair near him, and began to read aloud.

From off the pages and under his voice rolled out a story of two very different cities occupying the same space: clean, pristine Hightown, where real and self-styled nobility hid their corruption behind beautiful masks, their daggers behind their backs, and Lowtown, where people where as likely to knife you as help you but were more straightforward about the whole affair. He felt, for a little while, as if he stood on the docks looking out at the Gallows, as if he stood in the courtyard of the Chantry, as if he knew the halls of Hightown's mansions as intimately as he knew Danarius', and all the shadowy places an angry knife might hide in Darktown. The story was about someone the writer referred to as a "detective", someone who worked with the city guard but was not a guardsman, and the fiery, stern lady who captained the guard, solving some great and dire mystery.

Aodhan read for a long time, occasionally looking up to see if Fenris was still interested. The elf remained rapt the entire time, watching his lips move, watching his eyes trace the words on the page, intently. If you didn't know how, reading seemed like magic; Aodhan wasn't yet so old that he couldn't remember helping to teach the twins, and Fenris eager attention brought a smile to his lips. So he read until it began to turn his voice hoarse, and then he put the book aside, apologizing.

"Teach me."

With a little startled laugh, Aodhan said, "I couldn't teach you if I had the whole week, nevermind what time you mean to stay with us. Its not a skill anyone picks up quickly."

"Teach me what you can." Fenris clutched at the arms of the chair, nervous and worried about his own eagerness, that this was perhaps his greatest disobedience yet and he _did not care_, it would be worth any punishment Hadriana could dream up if he could take the stories from those pages as well, make them his own in a way.

Aodhan looked at him for a moment, as if trying to measure the elf's sincerity, and Fenris looked away but did not flinch from the scrutiny. Apparently Aodhan found what he was looking for, and he went to the desk, returning with a slender length of charcoal wrapped in cloth, the tip exposed for writing, and a sheaf of papers, and pulling his chair right up next to Fenris' He ended up using the book as a stiff surface, and paused when he set the charcoal to paper. "Do you speak the trade language?"

"_Yes_," he offered, slipping out Tevine to say it, and Aodhan shuddered a little, eyes fluttering shut.

But the Magister recovered himself quickly, and said, "Most of my books are in that language, not Tevine. I can teach you either..."

"I am less likely to accidentally reveal that I know any of the trade language. Teach me that."

They started with letters, which shapes made which sounds, which in most cases was easy took a lot of time to learn how to make a reasonable reproduction of those letters, though, which Aodhan insisted was the best test to see if someone had truly learned them. Afternoon drew on, the sunlight spilling in through tall windows shifting angle and turning golden. They missed lunch, which Fenris only noticed when Aodhan was satisfied with his progress on the letters, and there was a moment's pause while Aodhan took the paper back from him. And now he realized how close the were, Aodhan leaning across the arms of the chairs to hold the book in front of him, their arms almost touching. So close he could feel the heat from the other man's body, smell his skin-he smelled clean, and like the sea air and the greenness of his garden, so different from the blood and reagents smell of his master. Their closeness, and Aodhan's gentle manner... It satisfied the need that had been ignited in him the day he met Aodhan, and awakened another one he hadn't known before. He'd been _used_, yes, but had never lusted for someone without those red fingers twisting in his mind. It was strange, and uncomfortable.

And it felt _good_, being so close. "Here," Aodhan's voice interrupted his thoughts, turning them back to the paper as he carefully marked out certain symbols. "This is your name."

It looked about as long as it should be, and the shape of it was not especially fierce. He sounded it out, and it felt almost like saying it for the first time, when Danarius gave him the name-the same amount of wonder, as if he had just been given greater power over himself. "What's yours look like?" Aodhan wrote it out, helped him sound out the letters, but it didn't make any sense. "Why do you use so many extra letters?"

"We have a letter in Fereldan," and Aodhan drew it out, a barbed little thing, "that doesn't exist in the trade language. Or Tevine, for that matter. So it takes two letters to make the sounds. This is what it looks like." And he wrote his name in completely unfamiliar characters, only four symbols long.

Fenris had been too rapt in the letters and the closeness of Aodhan to notice anything else until Bethany piped up from the door, "Brother?" They looked up at her, and in doing so made brief eye contact, casual, a little tremor of something _like_fear but far more pleasant passing through Fenris. "Oh, and Fenris. We were about to have dinner."

"I'll join you," Aodhan answered, and Bethany gave both of them a sweet little smile, went back out into the hall. He began gathering everything up but as he made to stand a hand on his wrist stopped him, and he looked down at Fenris.

It was a much bolder move than Aodhan would've expected. The elf was looking up at him, and didn't flinch away for once, rich green eyes wide with fear and... other emotions Aodhan hadn't expected to see, something he had to quash a little spark of hope at. Fenris was trembling, slightly, and flushed, faintly, just across his cheeks and at the tips of his ears. His fingers around Aodhan's wrist twitched, and he brought his other hand up to the paper on top, the one with the names carefully written out on it. "May I... _keep_this?"

"Of course." And Aodhan slipped it out of the stack of papers, gave it to him, and carefully kept his smile warm but not _too_warm. It was a good sign, yes, but what he wanted from Fenris wasn't something he could ask for-and it wasn't the elf's to give, not until he was further rid of the slave's mindset.

Fenris, for his part, could scarcely remember to breathe, his heart in his throat with those blue eyes pinning him. He knew he looked like an idiot, like-something, he wasn't sure what but it wasn't good. That he couldn't hide these signs shamed him, but the need for this power over himself outweighed any embarrassment at his reactions to Aodhan.

After dinner, Aodhan nervously excused himself from any further lessons, saying he had work to do. Bethany cheerful offered to take over, and Fenris found it easier to concentrate on the lesson, but he was less emotionally involved. And somehow the lesson was more _frustrating_. He said something unpleasant to Bethany and stormed off to fight his imaginary opponents again, seething and hoping Carver would show up to test his skill again.

He didn't. And when Fenris went to the garden room that night, Aodhan wasn't there, but the blanket was still draped across the divan Fenris had slept on. He wrapped up in it, sat on the floor leaning against one of the divans, and stared up through the glass panes. Sometime just after the thin sliver of a moon reached her zenith she was gobbled up by clouds rolling in off the sea, and great fat drops of rain began to pelt the windows. Servants from all different parts of the grounds swarmed the room, coming in with ladders and going out the door, some walking down along the struts between the panes from some other part of the roof, tethered by ropes, to close the shutters. "Dreadful storm drawing up," a gnarled little elven woman told him, her voice thick with the Fereldan accent. "Serrah Hawke normally does this himself and makes young Carver help him, but he left early to beat the storm. I expect he won't be back for a couple of days."

"Aodhan is gone?" Fenris imagined he probably looked as surprised as he sounded, and he stood, carelessly letting the blanket fall.

The lady nodded, a faint little smile on her wrinkled face. "Some business with the senate, but I don't follow his politics."

Fenris was sure his host's departure wasn't to leave before the storm hit, but to escape Fenris and his awkward, abrasive manner. He went out to help shutter the glass, and worked in moody silence with the servants latching the shutters and hastily repairing broken latches-it was the first storm of the season, apparently. They grumbled about the weather, but not about the work, not words of resentment against the extravagant room they were working to protect. There were mostly elves among them, but humans too, no dwarves though he had seen at least one around the grounds. And he didn't feel like a slave, or like a servant, working with them.

And if he was neither of those, then he didn't know what he was. But he was something else right now, something that fit about as well as a too-large gauntlet, workable but awkward and certainly dangerous to go about in.

The servants gave him his space but didn't shun him, and when they were done and back inside a young man among them asked, "Any word yet?"

"What?"

He gave a patronizing smile at Fenris' confusion, nothing rude in it-he likely thought the elf ignorant. "The Fereldans Ser Hawke's holding you ransom for. The bulk of them passed through Danarius' holdings when they crossed. Bought passage out during the Blight and then was sold off as slaves, but it weren't legal. They're freemen. The Queen wants 'em back."

_That_was the question Aodhan had nearly asked, whether he'd seen them pass through-not the romantic nonsense Fenris had let fill his mind and heart. Aodhan was using him, of course, just as everyone else used him.

A tall, lean elf who worked in the stables leaned against one of the ladders, and when it became apparent Fenris wasn't going to answer said to his fellow, "I got a cousin, works in the Palace. She says the Queen's going to send the Hero and his Assassin up here if she don't get good word soon. And you know what they'll do."

"I'd wager between the two of them and the Hawkes," the first one said, "Tevinter'll be flying a different flag soon after."

"I hear they're cousins. Which explains a mighty number of things that must run in the blood."

Fenris didn't stay around for the gossip, but retreated to his rooms for the first time in more than a day. He wished for a window to sit by, but the room was interior, probably chosen so he wouldn't escape on that first day, so he'd stay until the family could sink their hooks in him. Instead he sat in the front room where Bethany had brought him breakfast that second morning, stared at the family crest on the wall.

He had only a couple of days in which he could run-the days before Aodhan came back, and before they were to return him to Danarius. It couldn't be done on a whim, though, or Danarius would catch him and he'd be subject to Danarius' discipline instead of Hadriana's. This foreign magister had worked his way in deeper and more cruel than what Danarius dared, but the marks he left in his wake were bruises instead of scars-they all used him, and he was done with it.


	7. The Seventh Day

A/N: Someone commissioned me to finish the story. I figure that's plenty of motivation and well more than adequate expression of interest. Please enjoy.

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><p>No one came to his room in the morning, so Fenris wandered out. Yes, he was plotting his escape, but that didn't mean he was going to turn down the meals-far better far than he was allowed at Danarius' estate-while he remained. As he neared the little dining room the siblings took their meals in he heard raucous laughter, an unfamiliar voice with an equally unfamiliar lilt to it, so he slipped in quietly as he could manage.<p>

A woman sat at the table with Carver and Bethany, her booted feet propped on the edge of the table and her chair tilted back on hind legs, providing Fenris from the door a clear view of just how little she wore under her belted tunic. Her skin was dusky, her form ample in all regards, but in particular her gloriously long legs. She wore her dark hair held back by a kerchief, and she took the little slice of fruit on the end of her knife between her lips and into her mouth in a lascivious fashion that, despite the strangeness of her and his programming, sent a shock of lust straight to Fenris' groin. She kept her eyes trained on him the whole time, and gave him a hungry, appraising look that made Fenris want to step back out the door and hide-or to grovel for her like he would Hadriana, he wasn't sure any more.

"And just who is this dear, sweet thing? Did you all mean to keep him to yourselves?"

The siblings glanced to one another briefly, and Bethany managed, "This is Fenris. He's a... _guest_ of Aodhan's."

"Is he, now?" The dusky woman tapped the flat of her knife against her lips, and her tongue darted out to lick some remainder of fruity nectar from the blade. "Do you mean a guest or a _guest_?" There was no mistaking her meaning from her suggestive tone.

"Just a guest," Bethany reassured her, speaking just a little too quickly.

"So that means Aodhan's not got a claim on him? And why not?" Carver was already blushing and hiding his face, and Bethany had flushed lightly but was taking the woman's manner of speech with a great deal more maturity. "Don't be shy, sweet thing. Sit with us. I won't bite unless invited."

Fenris obeyed, moving jerkily over to the table and sitting next to Bethany, across from the stranger, who smiled at him in a mix of genuine kindness and unabashed desire. He ate just as stiffly, in a very utilitarian fashion, and cautious of her as he would be at a table with Hadriana.

"So, how did you come to know the Hawkes?"

"Aodhan stole him," Carver offered, before Fenris could formulate an answer. Everything about the woman exerted an air of danger and allure, a push/pull he couldn't rightly deal with. It stole his wit, and so he was glad for the siblings' interruptions.

"_Stole_? He's a slave?" She looked surprised a moment, putting her knife down, then grinned widely. "I knew I was a good influence! And Varric, too, he'll want to hear about this to put in one of his books. I can see it now: a noble apostate stealing a handsome slave from a cruel rival magister, and-well, I suppose _I'll _have to write the steamy bits, I may as well do that while I'm here so I can ask Aodhan for pointers."

Carver covered his eyes, making a vague, horrified sound. "I don't want to hear this. I _really _don't want to hear this."

Isabela's smile was predatory and intensely amused all at once, one of the great jungle cats of Seheron eying a particularly tasty morsel. She continued her harassment in light tones, but tried to steer away from Fenris for which he was supremely grateful. When the breakfast was done and cleaned up he managed the will to excuse himself, stammering-she was _that oppressive _in the strength of her personality, that it undid all the fire he'd gained in the past few days-and left.

He walked out to the beach and found a little jut of rock, further down than he'd walked before, to perch on and try to calm himself. He _had _to leave now, especially if she was going to be around, as if he hadn't been serious enough before. Fenris thought he almost preferred Aodhan to her.

He let the sound of the softly spilling surf and the gentle salt breeze wash over him, fill him, drive away though and emotion. In that sort of pleasantly empty state he watched small long-legged birds pick through the sand, unafraid of their visitor so long as he remained still. A couple of little crabs sifted at the water's edge as well, eyes swiveling about and claws shoveling as though automated. Tiny fish with bright scales flashed just inside the water occasionally. It was peaceful, and he managed to get a hold of himself soon enough.

"There you are, sweet thing."

Taking a deep breath of the sea air, Fenris steeled himself for round two. "Do you require something of me?"

Movement did nothing to break the sounds around them, she was so silent, and Fenris was sure the birds only noticed her by sight, skittering off on their spindly legs. She walked past him, stopped just shy of the current tide line, hands on her hips and unfortunately presenting him with an excellent view of her perfect ass. He couldn't help but stare for just a moment, then looked away, staring down at his bare feet and the rock beneath them.

"Like the ocean, do you?" was not what he expected to hear. It was a game, surely, a trap, but he wasn't sure what just yet.

"I... suppose." Isabela didn't respond, said nothing for a moment that stretched on too long and Fenris grew uncomfortable. "Aodhan has been walking with me here, the past few mornings."

"He's always been a sentimental type." Silence again, for a moment, almost as if she was considering something. "That's why he helps delinquent pirates with too many morals for their own good get back on track." Another pause, and she glanced over one should to him, smiling. "And why he steals handsome slaves from cruel masters."

"Danarius isn't-" But Fenris caught himself, clenched his teeth at the memory of pain from his markings, those red tendrils twined in his mind and the pain of Danarius relieving stress through them, that early on no matter how he'd _begged_ Danarius had never lifted a single finger to stop Hadriana from-

"I've been snooping about Tevinter for a bit now, and _Danarius_ is a pretty common name, you know. They always mean the same person, and never far behind is _Hadriana_ and _that slave_. I'm in the right circles to _know_, love. I wasn't sure at first, but-I know."

And that knowledge was frightening. She was strong willed enough she wouldn't _need_ blood magic to make him comply, probably able to take advantage of his conditioning. The prospect made him draw in further on himself, for a moment he felt like a frightened child, a flash of memory_-somewhere dark, someone with him, a hand over their mouth, trying not to breathe or flinch or whimper as a shadow passed across their one sliver of light_-gone in a flash, but the feeling of it remained and he hated himself in that moment. Fenris thought about throwing himself into the ocean.

"You've nothing to fear, dear." She hadn't moved, or at least her voice hadn't gotten any louder, but Fenris didn't look up, remained submissive, hoping she was like Hadriana and preferred a little fight. "I only bed the willing. Even if it's just 'willing to turn tricks for hard coin'."

_Oh, but I'll _seem _willing enough if you push just so_. He said nothing, so she continued, a little laugh under her voice.

"I 'lost' a cargo of slaves, and by a convoluted, suitably unheroic story, lost my ship. Aodhan helped me clean all that up before he came here, got me a new ship. Didn't have to compromise about the whole slavery thing, though I _did_ do something incredibly _stupid_ for him. He's a good man, whether you want to believe that or not. He won't turn you back over, if you're afraid of it."

_Whether he's good or not is irrelevant._ But again Fenris said nothing.

"You mean to run," was the most frightening thing she'd said so far, and her voice was a little clearer. He looked up, ready to run _right now_ if necessary, but she was long-legged and finely toned and he had little doubt she could run faster, if not longer. She was facing him, arms crossed under her ample bosom. "I can see it in your eyes. If you're going to do it, do it right. I'll give you a ride somewhere safe; you won't owe me, Aodhan will owe me instead. No debts, no tricks Not going to take advantage of you. When we leave you'll come with me, and we'll drop you off in the next _safe _port."

Something in her demeanor had changed, not a softening but as if she had _turned off _the predatory air. She was still dangerous and frightening, but she projected it less. That gave him the strength to speak, at least. "What assurances do I have?" His voice sounded hoarse and weak in his own ears, much more vulnerable than he'd like.

"None. You don't know me, and I don't know you, so promises and oaths are meaningless. But do you have any better options?" A little wickedness returned to her face in a subtle grin, and Fenris knew better.

But she was right.

"I won't turn away your charity. But Aodhan-"

"Will let you go without a fuss." She seemed adamant about that, and confident enough that he believed her. "We'll have a little chat. He'll see reason. It will all be clean and painless and then you'll be off for less troubled waters."

And that was that. They shook on it, though Fenris was hesitant, Isabela's grip was firm and just a little too familiar, the heat of her skin enticing in the cool sea breeze-Fenris hadn't realized just how chill he was. She went back to the estate, and he stayed out for a while, still curled in on himself.

He deserved no such charity, and determined that he would remain vigilant, but without such charity he would get nowhere. He had nothing to offer for the service of others, after all.

Fenris passed the afternoon wandering the grounds, the place not yet familiar enough for sentiment but still evoking powerful emotion. He felt as if he had awakened here, in a sense, truly become an individual. He had not gotten what he _wanted_ out of the place, but he had a strange feeling he was getting what he _needed _and that would suffice. He was not used to having desires, after all, and going without satisfying them would matter little.

He found himself crouching in the training yard, marking symbols in the dust with the tip of one finger-Aodhan's name, as it was written in Fereldan, would surely be power over the man as his own name in Tevine had a strange power over himself.

That evening he marked it again with his fingertips, against the sheets of the too-comfortable bed, a silent prayer. _Give me what I need._

Sometime in the night, quiet dreams of the sea shifted; the motion became more carnal and the scents of blood and ash filled him, wrapped up around his brain and became all that he was. Sharp nails dragging across his scalp woke him, a searing kiss on the brow, a familiar touch _inside_. "Come on, little wolf."

He opened his eyes, sat up in synchronization with the motion of Hadriana crawling off the bed. One of her men had found his leathers, and he put them on without question. He flexed his hands, and the gauntlets creaked satisfyingly, _familiar_. It was all so familiar.

He didn't ask for a sword, and Hadriana didn't need to speak to let him know, just a little tug in his mind, that he would be taking point. The household had only a smattering of guards since the family was so accomplished themselves, there more for the safety of the servants who lived on the grounds than anything else. They hesitated when they saw Fenris, and those precious seconds were their very last.

It was _comfortable_, in a way. She wasn't nearly as reassuring in his mind as Danarius, but Hadriana was familiar. He might suffer under her hands, but she would take him back to his Master, who would replace her red tendrils with his own intimate touch, and Fenris wouldn't be alone or confused any more.

Out in the halls he could tell the house was on fire, cloying smoke wafting into the halls, but they meant to be well out before it reached this part of the house. Considering the layout, Fenris guessed they'd set the private chambers, the upper floors of the house, on fire. If the Hawke siblings smothered in their sleep he would feel no remorse for their painless deaths. All the better.

It was as if thinking of them summoned them: Bethany and Isabela appeared out of a stairwell, supporting Carver between them with no small difficulty. Adrenaline made it possible, a calm sort of fear in that state beyond panic that he could practically _smell_ on them. A little tickle in his mind, and he knew what Hadriana was asking, all the old signals remained-he charged.

He couldn't say what prompted him to give a warning growl, but he did, so very like his namesake, and Isabela turned, leaving Bethany alone to shoulder the burden of her sibling's limp form. Bethany staggered to the side, trying to get Carver to the floor gently. Isabela was _quick_, just as quick as he'd expected, had an elegant dagger in each hand as she dodged and dove in with both blades towards his side, meaning to tear him open, never mind their previous arrangements. And even under the haze of blood magic he understood, in a very clinical fashion, that there was no question in her mind that she should strike to kill.

There was no question in his, either.

Except there _was_. He phased through the strike, grabbed for her throat, but Isabela leaned back, surprise only coloring her features for a moment when he became ethereal. He had warned her, and once he finally got a hand through flesh, Isabela faltering because she wasn't sure how to fight a foe she couldn't touch, he _hurt _her, something that would kill her in hours, not instantly. She collapsed into a defensive crouch, one arm covering her stomach and the other holding up a dagger to block with. But she was done, no longer a serious threat. Fenris moved on.

Carver was unconscious, so he didn't bother. As he approached Bethany summoned up a protective bubble around herself and her brother, and sat there clutching him in her lap, staring at Fenris with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"If she knows what's good for her she'll stay like that. We'll be watching the exit, love." Hadriana brushed past him, a little ghost of slender, bloody fingers skittering across his mind. Bethany's gaze captivated him, and he remembered a different time, bruises on her slender throat, the tender attention of her brothers-the warriors who'd accompanied Hadriana brushed past him as well, and she didn't call for him until they'd all passed, playing a little game with him for his disobedience to her unspoken commands. "Heel, boy!"

Fenris turned to follow and never quite made it, a sudden burst of force driving him and about half of Hadriana's guard to the ground. Ice followed, freezing the acrid smoke building up in the hall, and he gasped for breath he hadn't realized he'd been short of. Under pressure growing by the moment, pinning him, slowly _crushing _him, he could only roll his head aside, and did, looking for the source of the magic even if he already knew.

Aodhan had come home early, and stood at the far end of the hall backlit by falling embers, dressed in plainclothes instead of a mage's robes. He was still impressive, bladed staff held behind him along the slant of his arm, other hand thrust forward from casting the spells. Another man stood next to him, jaw set grimly, his robes-clearly a mage's, but in a foreign, more southern style-covered with a completely ludicrous amount of feathers, and his dirty blond hair pulled back. His own staff was simple, but darkly colored and from this far possibly metal. All this Fenris took in in an instant, the heat of battle still in his limbs.

"I'll cover you," Aodhan's voice drifted this far, and the two mages began advancing, Aodhan casting the spell that kept Fenris pinned again. Hadriana erected a barrier similar to Bethany's and pulled out her bleeding knife, even as her guards crumpled under the force of Aodhan's magic and he advanced on her, stepping over Fenris to interpose himself between his friends and the invader.

The other mage knelt down next to Isabela first, and Fenris felt a sudden flood of energy through his markings as the man all but _glowed_, the stranger's skin seeming to crack apart for a moment before mending. He put his hands on Isabela's stomach, prodding for the injury, before cold blue flared around them and she gasped.

It was all he got to see before Hadriana's grip fisted in his mind, tugging him up like a hand gripping his hair, and he obeyed because his limbs weren't entirely his own, standing up against the oppressive pressure even as the effort wrenched his joints and cracked his bones.

Aodhan reached out, and while Fenris struggled against the magic settled a hand on the elf's face without looking at him, _pushed_ with that same cold as before, and Fenris and Hadriana both cried out at once-because Aodhan didn't stop, followed that connection as best he could. It left Fenris curled up on the floor, whimpering at the sudden abandonment again, shaking from the hard frost licking his limbs from inside and the jolt of electricity that had come with it, just like last time.

For her part Hadriana's concentration broke, and Fenris had fallen looking away from her, so he only saw the flash of electricity and felt the rush of cold, the magic running like too many fingers across all his tattoos, and heard her scream. He no longer seemed to be effected by Aodhan's oppressive magic, though, and privately _relished _in the sound of his long-time tormentor in pain even as electricity made him twitch and his mind grew hazier with the cold and the recent push/pull of magic inside.

"Aodhan, what are you-" He didn't recognize the voice speaking the trade tongue, so it must have been the stranger.

"No, let her go. We need to get out of here, _now_."

"Her men?"

"I hate to say this-we have to see to our own. Come on."

Despite his position Fenris could see just enough to tell when the stranger's dark boots moved into view, and could tell that he and Isabela hauled Carver up between them. They moved away, and he saw no one else and knew they were leaving him behind. He had hoped, for one moment of monumental weakness-but, no, of course not. He wasn't one of their own, and they couldn't spare him the time. Fenris could only hope that the lightning running through his limbs subsided before the building crashed down around him. Or perhaps... this would be its own form of escape, after all, the most sure of all options.

The last thing he expected was to be drawn up in surprisingly strong arms and cradled against a man's chest. He knew who it was by smell, by the feeling of the awkward touch of healing magic that came with it, unable to still the twitching but soothing the pain it brought. He looked up anyway, saw mostly the hard lines of Aodhan's scruffy jaw, the tight draw of his lips. Somewhere around the twitching and the smoke caught in his throat Fenris croaked, "Why-"

Aodhan glanced down at him, the strangely light blue eyes meeting his for once and keeping that contact. It was all Fenris needed to understand, and he accepted what he saw there for truth.

But he would need some time to consider the depth of emotion he had seen in those eyes, and if he was ready to grow into being a part of the Magister's family.


	8. The Eighth Day

autumnesquirrel on deviantArt has commissioned me to finish the story, so thank her for the sudden restart. Please, go shower her with dA llamas. If you're interested in commissioning something, check my profile.

Also: I'm not bashing Anders. He's certainly not my favorite character, and never was, but I have a very particular use for him in this story. I never cared for the one-dimensional way the two male LIs were portrayed, and I intend to give them a little more credit than the game did. Also, Fenris probably seems OOC. Don't worry, you'll start seeing signs of Broody soon enough.

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><p>It was the second time in a week he'd woken up after an intense bought of violence in an unfamiliar bed, clean and mostly whole. <em>Mostly<em>, because he was sore where Hadriana had forced him to move against Aodhan's strange magic. Someone had healed him, clearly, because when he tried he could move at all, but it ached fiercely between his bones, deep in the joints.

His senses were functioning just fine, though, and he knew from the subtle tilt to the bed and the sound of even breath he wasn't alone. Fenris shifted as much as he dared, craned his neck, and frowned a little at what he found: Aodhan in a red housecoat, auburn hair mussed as though from a fresh washing, sitting in a chair next to him, but his torso draped across the edge of the bed. The human's arms were drawn up underneath him, and he was a very careful distance away from Fenris, and by his breathing and the slight part to his lips, asleep. It was a foolish position in a foolish place to be, very exposed, but Fenris only grimaced; they'd had this discussion in the sunroom at the Hawke estate.

Which was no more.

Aodhan twitched, made a little sound of distress, as if Fenris' consideration of what had happened to the estate disturbed the mage. For all he knew it did, because Fenris had no idea whether the thoughts of those around you could influence your experiences in the Fade. Regardless, Fenris wanted to reach out, smooth some of that messy hair away from Aodhan's face, murmur to him _I will protect you as you have protected me_. Instead he drew up on the bed, leaning against the headboard, and drew his knees up to his chest, and watched the Magister sleep.

He still wanted to run. Aodhan and what he quietly offered was still the most frightening prospect Fenris had faced. He wasn't sure if it was quite freedom or perhaps a very clever form of slavery. He didn't want to know. And yet Fenris wasn't sure he _could_ run, now.

At length, Fenris decided he would determine day by day, at least for a while, if he would remain, and when Isabela was ready to leave he would make up his mind for good. He risked recapture staying or going; he risked harm to those around him staying or going. Aodhan seemed ready to accept that possibility, and in Fenris' mind it seemed better to subject someone who fully understood and willingly faced it.

Fenris wasn't sure how long he sat like that, but Aodhan eventually stirred, blinked blearily at him.

"Hello." The mage sounded hoarse, his voice almost grating.

"Where are we?"

"Minrathous, my senatorial apartments." It clearly hurt him to speak, and Aodhan tried to clear his throat with little success.

"And why were you in here?" Fenris couldn't help but raise an eyebrow, curious, joking-however the man wanted to take it. He felt free to do that sort of thing.

"If I had a mabari, I'd be sleeping with it instead." Aodhan tried again to clear his throat, and pushed himself up, running his fingers through his hair. "Actually, that's what Anders said, _if you want a pet so much go sleep with the bloody mongrel_. I hit him, so we're even."

Fear stiffened Fenris' limbs. "A... _pet_?"

"That's why I hit him," Aodhan repeated, voice full of confidence even over the almost squeaking quality it had taken on. "I wouldn't pay much mind to it, he's jealous, and he's never been good at that 'tact' thing."

"Jealous," Fenris repeated, slow and uncertain. It was a strange concept to process. "Is he your lover?"

When Aodhan laughed he lost his breath quickly, and buried his face in the covers again before settling to hucking gasps, his shoulders shaking all the while. "No!" He lifted his head, trying to breath. "Maker, no. He's a friend, I suppose. We courted for a while, but that ended. He still carries a torch for me, and thinks I can't tell."

"I see." But he didn't. But then, Fenris was new to this sort of thing. IT had been his job to observe relationships and how his Master might take advantage of them, but the mechanics were none of his concern. This sounded dreadfully complicated. "You... ended on good terms, then?"

"Not really," Aodhan finally settled leaning forward on the bed, arms crossed and chin resting on them. "We had a grand fight. Accidentally burned an abandoned house down in my neighborhood. I left a week later."

"I'm... sorry?"

Aodhan grinned dumbly. "I'm not. Any love I had for him had died months before that, and I was only staying with him because he _frightened_ me. I was happy to be gone from that wretched place. Though I can't say Tevinter is much better, after the past few days."

"I'm sorry." It came a little quicker, a little surer this time, and Fenris drew up on himself a little more. The estate burning down had been _his_ fault, after all, or at least had been caused by his presence. He almost _wanted_ punishment, because it would at least affirm his feelings and put him in a familiar place. And he deserved it too, for once, so he would bear Aodhan no ill will. Fenris _wanted_ him to raise a hand in anger or draw too much power from the tattoos or convulse those red tendrils twined in his mind-

The bed shifted, and Aodhan was suddenly in front of him, not touching but close enough that Fenris could feel the heat of his body, smell him-ozone and lingering soot over a slightly spicy musk and recent soap. Fenris tensed, waiting-

"Hey," came softly, a little less mangled than Aodhan's voice had been before, and Fenris looked up because he could _sense_ a gentle expectation behind the tone, as clear as any command. This close light blue eyes were multi-hued, a very faint ring of darker, almost green around the edge. For a moment, Fenris forgot to breathe, and it was like that moment when he'd seen the familial familiarity between the brothers, the moment in the library where they'd been so very close, the moment where he'd realized Aodhan _was_ carrying him out of the burning estate. "I've lost enough houses that I know better than to get attached. My home is where my family is, which is here, now. You've done nothing wrong."

It was not the romantic nonsense he'd been secretly hoping for, but it was what Fenris needed to hear. He released a long-held breath, and nodded, and asked, "You're not giving me back, I suppose?"

"No. Nor are you required to stay here. Isabela told me about your arrangement, and you can leave whenever you like, so long as you do so intelligently and in sound mind."

"If I _wanted_ to," the word still seemed strange and uncomfortable, "would I be permitted to stay?"

"Yes. As long as you need or want to."

"I don't know," Fenris offered, still trying to quietly catch up after that long-missed breath, or maybe breathless for other reasons, "when I mean to leave, if I mean to leave."

Aodhan gave him a little smile, meant to be encouraging, and said, "We'll take it day by day, then."

"Someone told me," Fenris paused, swallowed, uncertain of his words, and looked away because he wasn't comfortable with being so forward and questioning motives, "that you were keeping me for... _leverage_, against Danarius."

"I was." Aodhan said it without hesitation, and drew away a little though he still remained close on the bed. Fenris decided he liked the distance, a comfortable proximity-close enough to keep him in that sphere of disarming influence Aodhan seemed to exude, far enough that it seemed to ask nothing in return of him that he wasn't already giving. "Now I'm not. I imagine you've been used plenty by other people, and don't need one more."

Fenris wasn't entirely sure what to say to that, so he just nodded, kept his gaze cast away. After a few moments of silence Aodhan's nearness grew more uncomfortable, and Fenris tried to make his discomfort silently known by letting himself fidget, uncharacteristic as it was-he didn't yet have the will to ask Aodhan, a Magister and his _host_ at the very least, to move. The Mage caught on, and stood up to his full height. He wasn't exceptionally tall, save that Fenris was sitting down right now.

"Are you hungry?" Fenris looked up at him and nodded. "Come on, then. There's probably something cold left for us."

Under the soft glow of lamplight Fenris hadn't realized what time of day it was, as the only window in the bedroom had been heavily draped. Out in the halls, which were lit just enough to allow safe passage and cast a very intimate sort of shadows, it seemed it was night and the household asleep. Fenris kept two steps behind Aodhan, on his left, and paid close attention to the turns and any notable landmarks so he could make his way back without imposing any further.

They ended up in a modestly sized kitchen, and whether it was well equipped or not Fenris couldn't tell. "Well," Aodhan's voice carried a little huffing sound beneath it, "I guess they really are pissed with me if they didn't leave anything out. Make yourself comfortable in there," he gestured to a door off the kitchen, "and I'll be along in a minute."

Fenris obeyed, even though it felt wrong to have the Magister serving him after a fashion, soothing himself with the thought that he'd just be in the way if he tried to help. Through the door was a cozy study nothing like the one at the Hawke estate, clearly set up for entertaining with seating in two distinct groups and only a small, decorative desk. Immediately Fenris went to the shelves along one wall, and though he couldn't read their titles examined the books. He wondered if any of these were spare copies of the books Aodhan's friend from Kirkwall had written, or if those tales would be lost to him forever. Hesitantly he touched a spine, ran his fingers down it, and then ran his hand across the spines of several books, as if by touching he might gain the knowledge of what they were, as if one of them might _feel_ right.

When someone in the room cleared his throat Fenris was halfway across the wall, and as it wasn't a voice he recognized Fenris startled, turning around sharply. The feathered mage sat sprawled in one of the comfortable-looking plush chairs not three paces from him, a book splayed open across one thigh, a brightly painted earthenware mug of something at his lips. He took a sip, staring expectantly over the rim of the mug at Fenris with his soulful brown eyes, and Fenris felt as if he were being judged of some crime, this man the presiding justice.

The mage set the mug aside on a short silver side table, mug and metal rattling loudly in the otherwise silent room. "So," he began, "Isabela tells me you were a slave, and the woman who burned down Aodhan's house was there to retrieve you?"

"Yes, Ser." Considering the circumstances Fenris felt it was best to draw on old habits drilled into him by a lifetime of slavery to a mage, and stood with a tight, formal posture, keeping his voice even and respectful. He would at the very least not offend this way.

"And you were aiding her?" The mage quirked one eyebrow, and Fenris couldn't help but notice how ragged he looked, the dark circles under his eyes and the sallow tone to his skin. The man might haven been something passing for handsome, certainly foreign enough to Tevinter sensibilities to be exotic, but he looked ragged.

"No, Ser." Which wasn't entirely correct, so Fenris quickly amended, "That is, yes, Ser. She was using blood magic to compel me."

The mage made a noise in his nose, an irritated hum Fenris had heard before out of his Master, picked up the mug again and took a long drink, eyes downcast. Though he grew evermore nervous around the man-Anders, surely, Aodhan's old lover and the one who had called him a _pet_-Fenris remained still, waiting for further questions. He did his best to retain eye contact, though-he was not a slave in Aodhan's household, or so he had been told, and while he would remain respectful of someone above his station he would comport himself as Aodhan surely expected.

Anders set the mug aside again, folded his hands in his lap, and stared back at Fenris as though his gaze was a challenge of some sort. "Are you still a slave, then? When in Tevinter, as it were?"

"No, Ser. Aodhan has told me I am to consider myself a guest."

Apparently this amused the mage, because he smirked, and very nearly laughed by the brief shake of his shoulders. "A guest? Until when?"

"Until I wish to leave, Ser. Lady Isabela has offered to take me with her when she leaves, and I am considering the offer."

He did laugh then, a sharp, surprised sound, and repeated, "Lady-" before shaking his head, as if in disbelief. "Why would you _stay_? If your Master is willing to attack a senator to get you back? Its only a matter of time until someone gets lucky. Why would you put yourself and your host in the sort of danger?"

Before answering Fenris considered his words carefully, not because the question was difficult but because Anders clearly disapproved of his presence, and Fenris didn't want to cause any trouble for Aodhan. "I don't know, Ser. He's been very kind to me, and I have never been free before. As to the danger, I'm under the impression he would be fighting with Danarius regardless."

"But why _you_?" Anders gestured with an open hand, as if to indicate Fenris' body. "Aside from the king's ransom in lyrium apparently stamped on you, I mean. You're sleeping together, aren't you? That's got to be it. He's always liked dangerous ones."

"No, Ser, Aodhan hasn't-"

"_Damnit_. Well, there goes any hope I had of patching things up between us. I still don't understand _why_. He's just so-_irresponsible_-sleeping with anyone who-"

This was clearly going to take a while if he didn't stop it, so as Anders stood from the chair and moved away Fenris took a step back, back against the bookcase, and tried again, "No, we aren't-"

"-_has a pulse_. I know he was going through a hard time but _really_, the man has all the emotional maturity of a _rabbit_! _How_ he's managed to keep everything together this long is beyond me!" Anders had begun pacing and gesturing wildly, but stopped, turned and looked at Fenris as if for the first time, then stalked up to him with quick steps, boots thudding against the hardwood floor. The mage stopped hardly more than a breath away from him, and Fenris tried to lean back, pressing himself tighter against the bookshelf, away from the mix of coffee, lyrium, and whiskey on the man's breath. "Which one of you does the fucking?"

"We don't-" Fenris didn't appreciate the treatment, and his hands were starting to phase outside of his influence, driven by adrenaline and fear, ready to defend himself if the mage got any _more_ in his face. "I haven't-"

"This is _important_. You can tell a lot about what he thinks of a person this way. Come on, I'll tell you the secret of it if you'll answer my question."

"Anders, what's going-" they both turned to see Aodhan at the door to the kitchen with a silver tray in his hands, the contents of which were unimportant at the moment, as his attention noticeably moved down, "-on?"

Anders and Fenris both looked down, to see the glow around Fenris' hands and that where he'd been gripping the bookshelf his hands had phased partly into it. "Ah," Anders said, voice suddenly much softer as Fenris pulled his hands out of the books and jammed them into the pockets of his trews, unphased. "So that's what the lyrium is for."

With deliberately careful motions Aodhan set the tray aside, balanced across a small stack of books on a side table, and at the same time Anders drew away, each crossing the room to meet the other.

Except that their eyes only met briefly, Anders brushing past to head out the door. Fenris finally relaxed, taking one step away from the bookcase, and decided he was going to do his best to avoid Anders in the future. He'd moved past frightened into genuinely angry for a moment, and didn't trust himself to keep that temper again.

"Old Mab heard me banging around in the kitchen and got up to fix us something. Come on, before it gets cold." Aodhan's manner changed completely, back to being easy and open, and he began clearing off the little desk in the room. Something about the behavior seemed forced, automatic, and Fenris trusted his own judgment in this regard, as noticing such things had been a necessary skill in guarding Danarius. Fenris pulled up a chair for himself, and they sat down to a very early breakfast.

"I apologize for whatever Anders did," Aodhan eventually said. He was eating slowly, deliberately leaving much of what remained on the tray between them for Fenris. "Somewhere under all that anger he means well. He _always_ means well. He's just forgotten how to deal with people."

"He seemed convinced that we were... _involved_." Fenris could tell what Aodhan was doing with the food, and wasn't sure if he should just accept this quietly-he was hungry, after all, as he supposed he'd been asleep for the whole day-and it seemed rude to either refuse _or_ eat his fill, with what little etiquette serving Danarius had left him.

"A lot of people seem to think that," Aodhan murmured, voice a little dark. "The only one who _doesn't_ now is the one who usually tries to talk me into that sort of thing. But it is what it is. Please, feel free to correct them if it embarrasses you. Or not, if you think it'll offer you some protection. Just rest assured I'm not going to take advantage of you."

Fenris wasn't particularly sure of what he was about to say, but it seemed appropriate. "I am not embarrassed, only concerned for your reputation."

Aodhan nearly spoke around a mouthful of food, thought better of it and finished chewing first. "What bearing would it have on my reputation?"

"Everyone seems to think well of you, and you have made very clear what you think of slavery. I was a slave. They may suggest you are not sincere in your protests."

A tight little gesture with his eating knife, not waving it madly like Carver, and Aodhan said, "You spreading rumors about me does _concern_ me, yes. But we've just talked about it, and I've given you permission to spread those rumors as you see fit. If you're going to be staying here, _whether you run away with Isabela or not_, you're a free man. As such, do what you please within reason. As I said; it involves me, and we talked about it. That's the responsible thing to do. Now you do what you want with it."

"What I want," Fenris repeated, as if testing the words. They felt strange on his tongue, seemed to leave a slightly earthy taste in his mouth-or maybe that was the tea. "I will have to think about it."


	9. The Thirtieth Day

A/N: The chapter title reflects a necessary time skip to reduce creep factor.

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><p>It was, by Aodhan's estimation, not the worst month he'd ever had, but it was certainly in competition. Having his family and closest remaining friend nearly die in the fire that had consumed his house, Anders around being, well, <em>Anders<em>, and Queen Anora breathing down his neck from her distant throne, was not enough, oh, no. The Senate wasn't in session at the moment, but the boards he was a member of were conducting emergency meetings.

Because it was a more popular sport than even the gladiatorial ring to compare political cock's lengths, Tevinter legislated _everything_. Aodhan admired them for their foresight, because they really did have a committee or a panel or special bureau or _something_for every conceivable situation, including ones so obscure that they met only once yearly to make sure their members were still alive and in good political standing. And he detested the way it tied them up, made accomplishing anything but mustering forces to deal with the Qunari more trouble than it was worth.

Of course Aodhan, being who he was, had immediately been appointed to what were regarded as the easiest and most difficult boards to work with: Foreign Relations, where he was considered their official Expert on the Southern Nations (which meant very, very little), and some sort of threat to the Qunari (he had killed their Arishok, after all, and had become a point of national pride); and Minority Management, which was the deceptively pleasant way Tevinter had of talking about any non-humans in the country and how best to subjugate them. By Aodhan's standards neither board ever did anything worthwhile and only stood to highlight Tevinter's incredibly narrow worldview.

Today, it was spies in Seheron who'd been apprehended and killed, and the Qun had sent a strongly-worded warning. Which was how it usually started, tradition nearly as ancient as the countries themselves. Aodhan had told them early on, "Any spy who remains undetected in Qunari lands would be much better off back home serving on this board than waiting for the inevitable." His peers had rebuked him, and gone about their fist-pounding outrage and scheming; this was all very typical. Both societies suffered from terminal hubris, Tevinter in itself and the Qunari in their Qun, and it was just a matter of which one consumed itself first. They'd at least gotten to formulating a proper response as Aodhan got to the "stop taking notes for Anora and make naughty doodles on the rest of the page" stage. From here on out it would be arguing about the wording of the letter, and in at most a year's time they'd be seeing military action again.

Aodhan was not looking forward to being paraded in front of the Qunari as more direct threat. That Tevinter thought they _feared_ him only showed how incredibly ignorant they were of their enemies, something Aodhan had naively tried to explain in his first weeks here. To understand the Qun and Qunari one had to embrace the culture and be assimilated into it, and as such they were unknowable to any outsiders who weren't Tal-Vashoth. Aodhan understood well enough that they did not _fear_, having very little sense of self but a strong sense of purpose.

The board dismissed some time in the late afternoon, because the only thing the Tevinter loved more than righteous outrage at Qunari actions was decadence, and each of them likely returned to his or her homes to be attended by pleasure slaves (or to beat them, whatever soothed their black hearts). Aodhan made his way through the unnecessarily opulent gold-and-gem encrusted Senate building to the _other_board meeting, already in session, which he'd been excused from because Qunari affairs were always more important than everything else.

Minority Management was more infuriating, if that was even possible. But Aodhan made a little more progress here, able to work some subtle influence with his popularity outside the board, because even after two years in Tevinter he was still a fashionable guest to host and an impressive name to drop. This meeting room was smaller, but no less gaudy, and as usual no one sat near Marinus, so Aodhan did, trying to cause as little disturbance as possible. "Saved me a seat, I see," he muttered, grinning at the older man.

"Always," delivered in Marinus' infallible deadpan-but Aodhan knew the man well enough by now to know he was smiling privately. Marinus wore his hard years openly, scarred across one cheek from a near miss in a duel, wrinkled in a truly impressive fashion, the head of short gray hair he'd had two years ago now thinning rapidly and turning wispy. There was still a fire in his eyes, though, his voice still strong, no major difficulty in the way he moved. Aodhan suspected blood magic was responsible for some of that spryness but it was so common in Tevinter he no longer flinched at the mention of it. To a practiced eye or someone who had been _told_there was an eldritch cut to Marinus' face, his ears perhaps just slightly pointed, as one might expect of a half-elf. But it wasn't particularly prominent.

Marinus was also his only real ally on this board, and Feynriel's mentor.

The old Magister quietly passed him notes in a gnarled, difficult script that Aodhan had to squint at, but he read over them quickly while the board continued deliberating. By the end of the notes Aodhan knew anyone on his end of the table could likely hear his teeth grinding together, but he didn't much care. When he looked up at the gathered magisters Aodhan offered them his very best glare.

"This was an _emergency_. _Really._"

The magisters fell silent, staring back at Aodhan in almost equal shock at being interrupted. Marinus cleared his throat, covering his mouth with a hand, which was his private signal to Aodhan that he had done something _foolish_and entertaining, and Marinus most likely approved.

"Of course." Aemilius was at most five years older than Aodhan, dark in every aspect of his being from his hair and his eyes to his gold-chased Senator's robes, and his ambition. Of all the other members of the Senate Aodhan regarded Aemilius as his most sincere rival, as they were at odds over nearly everything and frequently had reason to bump heads, moving in the same circles and sharing positions on this board. "The brothels are an important part of our economy; we need a strong base to keep off revolt and fuel the engines of war to keep off Qunari, or so you've argued in the past."

If Aodhan could smack that slick smile off the bastard's face he'd do it, but Aemilius was well-established, well-respected, while he himself was little more than a useful novelty, placed on this board as part of concessions to the small alliance of magisters who sought greater rights for lesser beings. Even if he won a duel against the man it might still be a disgrace. "So it's an emergency. For _us_. That your elven whores are organizing." Aemilius only shrugged, still smiling, and his perfectly pomaded black hair never moved; the gesture was his way of saying he agreed, because the words would never leave his mouth. "Give me a week, then," Aodhan said with a sigh, "and I'll find out what's wrong with them."

When the meeting dismissed Marinus exaggerated his difficulty in standing, and Aodhan offered him an arm; this was a familiar song and dance. They wandered off through the building and into a courtyard just outside, where the air was sweetly perfumed by delicate flowers, which were of course attended by slaves, and found a bench enclosed by greenery where they sat together.

"I hear you've made a new enemy," Marinus began, and only now could one hear the weariness of age in his voice.

"It's what I'm best at." Aodhan smiled grimly at him. "This one knows how to fight dirty, though."

"I have gone out of my way to avoid crossing Danarius." Marinus shifted, something off in the foliage catching his eye momentarily. "You can do more good alive than dead, and one slave is not very much compared to the work we mean to do."

"He wasn't one slave when I took him. He was most of Danarius' wealth, as I saw it." The conversation made Aodhan uncomfortable, and he did nothing to hide it because he knew what questions were coming and that he _shouldn't_ lie to Marinus, even if he lied to himself. Though he trusted no magister, he _had_to trust a man who could walk through his dreams and rifle through all his most private desires. "My missing Fereldans passed through Danarius' holdings when they came here. I have reason to suspect he hosted them, even, and knew they would be coming through well ahead of time. He may have evidence of their passing, if he hasn't destroyed it in a fit of paranoia."

Marinus made a soft sound somewhere in his throat, one Aodhan didn't quite know what to make of, whether the man was amused or simply acknowledging him. "Yet you're keeping the slave after Danarius had your estate burned down. I was _fond_of that place, and I was looking forward to visiting you soon. I take it as a personal affront from both you and Danarius." Marinus finally looked at him, an appraising look that seemed to take the whole of him in, body and mind. "Useful as you are, above all else you're a sentimental fool. I still haven't decided if that's good or bad for us."

"It's part of my charm." Aodhan gave him a winning smile, and Marinus raised one eyebrow in a supremely disbelieving look. "And I'm sure it will be the death of me."

"Well, I have no doubt you're treating him well." _And I won't ask questions I already know the answers to._Marinus didn't say it, but he didn't need to, and it was something of a relief. Aodhan could at least keep his illusions this way instead of having to speak the thing he feared. "And don't think that just because he's done nothing for a month Danarius won't strike at you again. He's devious and clever, more dangerous than most anyone who would bother with you. I will do my best to keep an eye on him, but he's surely taken steps to prevent my meddling."

"Thank you."

They said their goodbyes and Marinus left on his own without any theatrics exaggerating his age. Of course, between both meetings and their little walk it was getting on in the evening, and Aodhan realized he'd likely missed dinner.

Which was fine. He hadn't been around for meals much anyway, with how upset Bethany and Carver had been with him just after the house burned. He'd even still been clutching a very unconscious elf when the twins let fly their anger, and had been doubting himself ever since. Best to steer clear until they'd cooled down, or so he'd thought at the time. Now it had been plenty long and then some, but avoidance was so much easier than the uncomfortable discussion they were going to have with him.

So when he got home he went straight to his rooms, changed into something more comfortable than his senate robes (he'd never been fond of the thing, even if it made him look oddly dashing), and pretended he wasn't there, working on his correspondence to Anora rather than answering the door when his siblings, a servant, Anders came by. The quickly disappearing bottle of Rivaini Rum on his desk was plenty fine company.

He was working by lamplight and cursing his failing eyesight when a softer knock sounded, and a timid but growling, "Aodhan?" followed. And now he cursed again; he'd been avoiding his siblings and Anders as best as possible, but had been keeping company with Isabela and Fenris often enough, teaching the latter to read when he could spare the time. It had been a pleasant way to pass the month, and the elf had slowly been growing more confident with Aodhan's praise (he _was_ picking it up quickly, considering), and comfortable with Aodhan's presence. It was good and bad, good because the elf questioned the world around him more, seemed to be going through some sort of awakening, grouched and generally acted more like a _person_than a beast of burden. The bad came because of Fenris' comfort, when the elf sat a little too close or seemed to lean into an accidental touch. It suggested to Aodhan that he'd come to think of the mage as his new Master, at least on some subconscious level, and Aodhan wanted none of that. He wanted the elf to leave this place a free man, and before Danarius could strike at him again.

Aodhan answered the door despite his better judgment, the alcohol or the stress of that past month or his gnawing _loneliness_clouding his mind. "Fenris." By the way the elf crinkled his nose, not quite a snarl, he could smell the alcohol on Aodhan's breath, but he said nothing. And Maker, did he look fantastic. Fenris had put on just a little more weight, mostly muscle as he was still training, and it filled out his frame better, made him less gaunt and haunted. Between that and the new found fire in his rich green eyes Fenris looked more alive, less like a slave. And he met Aodhan's gaze unwavering now, only looking away during brief relapses of submission.

"You weren't in the study for our lesson." Fenris was wearing linen trews and a soft green shirt that laced in the front, which Aodhan thought he recognized as one of Isabela's more conservative articles of clothing, something left behind by a male conquest. It was just slightly too big for Fenris, but with the way it hung on his frame seemed suggestive enough. He held a book under one arm, which Aodhan recognized as the volume they'd been working from, one of Varric's less convoluted stories. "So I thought I would come to you."

Some part of Aodhan knew he should send Fenris away, that he was just a little too drunk for all this, but the elf looked hopeful, and looked as if he might insist. Aodhan just nodded, momentarily afraid to speak, and let him in. They settled on a low couch in the front room of his suites after Aodhan had retrieved parchment and charcoal and a stiffer book to write against, and Fenris started reading.

The elf was doing well, _considering_. He was still very early on though, and listening to his progress was almost painful save for that sinful voice. He no longer required correcting because he had learned to ask instead of stubbornly stumbling through, and he wasn't particularly good at figuring out how sounds changed from context, but he wasn't learning to read in Tevine and all of this was expected. Aodhan was gentle with him, patient, even if the elf sat too close and the sound of his voice, even in this halting fashion, stirred a sense of desire. It was almost more than Aodhan could stand, trying to keep from putting an arm over the elf's shoulders and nuzzle into that snowy hair while he read.

"Aodhan?"

When Fenris was blinking up at him, large eyes full of concern, Aodhan finally realized Fenris had been asking him a question. He blinked back dumbly, feeling almost as if he'd been asleep. "I'm sorry. What was it?" He drew away from the elf a little, hoping the distance might help.

"If you're not up for a lesson tonight, it's fine." By the tone of Fenris' voice he was only grudgingly okay with the prospect, and he opened his mouth to say more but closed it quickly, keeping eye contact for one long, slightly awkward moment.

No sign or tell warned him before Fenris' lips were on his own, and through his intoxicated buzz Aodhan didn't think about it, just leaned into the kiss. It was a tentative, nervous thing on Fenris' part, not that he had never kissed before but that it had only been done _to_him, under the influence of blood magic or by force. When his lips parted and a hesitant tongue traced the line of Aodhan's lips the man responded enthusiastically, one hand sliding up into Fenris' hair against the back of his head and the kiss deepening.

It was nothing like the bruising hard, searing hot thing he'd known with Hadriana, or the blood-drugged senseless haze of pleasure with Danarius. His lips tingled warmly, his blood sang, and so did his lyrium, responding in its own way to the mage's proximity and the intimate contact. It ended too quickly, and he looked up at Aodhan through half-lidded eyes, breathless.

They stayed like that for only a single heartbeat, close in an awkward half-embrace on the sofa. Then Aodhan's eyes widened, his hand dropped away from Fenris' hair, and suddenly he was off the couch, mouth working but no sound coming out.

"I'm sorry," he finally managed, words spilling out too quickly. "I don't-you don't have to do that. You don't owe me anything."

"I know." And though the thought of what he'd just done terrified him, Fenris' voice was steady and certain.

Aodhan's was not. By turns he was gaping, bug-eyed, at the elf, and clenching his jaw or chewing at his lip or something else that tightened his jaw. Finally he blew out a stiff breath through clenched teeth, rubbed his hands through his hair in a more vigorous fashion than usual, mussing it wildly. "I'm too drunk for this." He sounded almost on the verge of tears. "Or not drunk enough. I'm sorry."

And Aodhan left, not seeming to realize that Fenris was in _his_ room.


	10. The ThirtyFirst Day: Morning

A/N: Sexytimes, finally! This chapter is NSFW.

* * *

><p>And that was how Aodhan ended up in his current state of disarray at <em>the Starlit Bower<em>, sitting in the Madame's office in a large, overly plush chair with his feet drawn up into the seat, cradling a glass of wine close to his chest like something precious. Even this room, meant largely for entertaining customers who weren't there for the staff this particular evening and for the Madame's comfort while balancing her books, was decorated in mossy greens and soft browns, the walls covered in a perfect _tromp l'oeil_ of endless forest, the ceiling as a twilit sky flush with stars, which were actually tiny chips of enchanted crystal and in some rooms the only lighting. In here the light level was currently low, the sort of warm glow one would expect around a bonfire.

It was an awkward hour, he knew, but Madame Seren was used to keeping awkward hours with the nature of her business. When she floated into the room from the back door, which Aodhan had always assumed went to her own private rooms, she wore only a thin slip of a blue dress and a silver robe. _Floated_ really was the only way to describe how smoothly, effortlessly she moved, ethereal and graceful as one would expect a true child of Arlathan, her flaxen hair long and wild, blue eyes piercing as the midday sun in her delicately structured face. She offered him a smile, the secret, true one Aodhan knew she reserved for friends, and he tried to smile back.

She settled down into the chair behind her desk and reached across for the glass and wine bottle that had been left with Aodhan by serving staff. "You look like you've had an exceptionally rough evening."

Aodhan nodded, tried to sip-not gulp-his own wine. "Its not very interesting, I assure you. But it made me decide I should get some business over with. The Senate's finally noticed."

Seren's lips twisted into a tight little frown, and she delicately sipped her own wine. "I suppose I should be grateful it took them this long. And this likely means someone has been indiscreet. It shouldn't be too difficult to find out who."

"Reign them in, whoever it is," Aodhan shifted, wedging himself into the chair a little more comfortably. "Now we have to decide what to do to mollify the Powers That Be, turn their gaze away for a while. I could make some issue of a recent scandal of my own that might distract the board."

"The slave?" Her voice was smooth and rich as the wine when Aodhan poured another glass. He nodded. "I hear you've lost as much as you've gained."

"And it's absolutely not worth it." Aodhan scowled down at his wine for a moment, unwilling to look up and find himself surrounded by a familiar shade of green. "I mean to send him off with a friend, but she can't leave until some other business of mine is conducted." This time he failed at taking just sips. Wine wasn't the best way to drown his sorrows, but it would likely keep him in a more manageable state than the half-blind drunk he'd been trying to avoid for months. "The problem is that he's _attractive_. Not just his body-there's fire in him, and intelligence, somewhere under all his submission. I don't have time and safety to draw that out, so he's a distraction. My friend would be good for him. She has the time and just enough safety."

"You could _use_ a distraction, dear. Or a few. You deny yourself too much. If you're not going to spend time on getting the lovely fellow in working order you should come by more often." Seren stood, came around the desk and grasped Aodhan's free hand with her delicate, slender one, drew him up and led him out of the room. "We've a matched pair now, they started about a month ago. A brother and sister from Antiva-they came highly recommended by a brothel I've been in touch with in Rialto. I think you'll like them."

Every time Seren made this sort of offer Aodhan questioned whether it was right or not. Seren had come by her freedom as something of a minor accident, one Aodhan had a guiding hand in after seeing the woman on display at another Senator's estate. She'd never quite been broken and it was part of her appeal, or so the Senator had told him, gloating over all sorts of horrors the woman had endured and yet she remained wild and beautiful. Once she was out she'd approached Aodhan for a little loan-she knew her talents and knew that she would have to use them to get by. He'd promised her more than a little if she'd accept his help in establishing her business but keep his involvement quiet. Since those early days Aodhan had retreated fully from meddling in Seren's affairs, as she was plenty competent to run the brothel on her own, and he took no cut from her profits. All the employees were free or were working with Seren for their manumission papers. Aodhan knew it shouldn't guilt him as it usually did-those who didn't want to be here left as soon as they had the money, which was relatively quick with how popular the place was among wealthier clientele.

Tonight it guilted him doubly, because he kept thinking back to the shameful kiss he'd indulged in earlier, and worried he might be too worked up for this-_or it wouldn't be enough_ after that kiss, the thought of _that_ sort of shame hounding him just as much. By the end of the all too short trip to the lounge Aodhan was already quaking like a terrified virgin, and Seren stopped just sort of the door to give his hand, still caught in hers, a little squeeze.

"Dearest," she murmured, her voice soft and gentle like an evening breeze, "no one's going to _make _you do anything if you're truly in such a state. But think about it, please; it might do you some good."

Aodhan took a moment to gather himself together, and drained his glass of wine before setting it aside on a table in the corner near the door. This was, after all, the second most natural thing in the world.

There were others in the lounge, actively enticing clients or chatting with each other and each of them looking the perfect Dalish noble savage, but he knew the two newcomers immediately, not because he'd met everyone else previously but because they were presented in a different fashion. They sat together in a luxurious nest of pillows against one wall, the woman sitting up and the man reclined with his head in her lap. They were elven, yes, as everyone else here, but dressed as travelers or merchants, their clothes of fine cut and rich colors but not _too _rich in appearance. Aodhan wondered what they were supposed to be, and whether they were well-received here in Tevinter where the lines were so much more heavily drawn between the races. They were twins, certainly, not identical but similar enough that he could tell, their hair the same just-off-black, their eyes rich and chocolatey brown, the same broad cut to their faces and the same rich gold in their skin. That they were Antivan was beyond question. They looked breathtaking together.

Seren made introductions: the woman was Iliana, the man Celio, and Seren simply introduced Aodhan as, "A very dear friend of mine, and a very important man. We are all better off if you do not ask his name."

"Sit with us for a moment," Iliana said, her voice bright as a jewel in the sun, her accent only just detectable. They drew apart, made room for him, and he sat as invited.

"You look like you have had a rough day." The man's voice was deep and sensuous, and it sent a shiver down Aodhan's spine, his eyes nearly fluttering shut for a moment. It wasn't the gravel he'd grown so fond of lately, but it was a strong voice, the sort of voice he could melt into.

Aodhan nodded slightly, and Iliana began running her fine, strong fingers through his hair, an affectionate repetitive motion, setting it back in a more reasonable state and soothing him. "I've spent too much of the past month wanting things beyond my reach." Which was as close to an admission as he'd given anyone, somehow more shameful _because _it was more than lust. What he wanted wasn't right to ask of one so recently a slave who likely didn't understand; what he had been offered little more than an hour ago wasn't quite enough to satisfy, and too much to take.

"Then do not _think_." Iliana shifted and drew him back to lean against her bosom, and her warm breath brushed his ear just before her lips. "We will do all that for you."

Aodhan nearly grimaced, because they'd read him so very well-but it was a whore's job to know what a person wanted, what role they preferred to play. Celio straddled him, strong and nimble hands finding the catches on Aodhan's shirt, fingertips trailing skin when they found it. "No-name." The man smiled down at him, as if this were a clever joke. "What _can_ we call you?"

"Shay." When he needed a name in the seedier parts of Minrathous, it was what he went by-the right people knew what it meant, and the wrong people just saw some Fereldan.

"Shay," he repeated, deep voice full of lust. The very last catch on Aodhan's shirt undone, Celio's fingers traced up along his collarbone, and the man leaned in to kiss him.

It was nothing like the nervous kiss earlier this evening, and if anything Aodhan was passive this time. It was enough to light a fire in his loins, and when Celio pressed against him, feeling the other man's hardness against his own growing ache, Aodhan decided that Seren was right.

He didn't come here _nearly_ often enough. With Iliana kissing and nipping her way around the back of his neck, hands wandering freely, Celio's lips locked with his in what was probably the most sensuous kiss of his _life_, Aodhan was quickly falling to Iliana's suggestion.

Celio began kissing his way down, lips and tongue finding every sensitive bit of skin between the little spot just beneath Aodhan's ear, leaving a love bite or two on the way, soft marks that would fade before the evening was out, and Aodhan's nipples, where the whore lingered for a while, nipping and teasing, hands still wandering. For a moment Aodhan was aware of the lusty stares they were drawing from other patrons, the admiring looks from some of the whores, and the thought that he was being made a _spectacle _only made Aodhan harder, more vocal in his pleasure.

By the time they led him upstairs Aodhan was half-undressed, pants unlaced, hair mussed again, and not really sure how he'd ended up this way. It didn't much matter, because he wasn't the one in charge here, and he _needed_ that. Things seemed a little muzzy, but it was the alcohol, the lust for _intimacy_-because that was what he really wanted, just to be _close _to someone for a while, guiltless.

He wasn't sure about all the steps in between-everything seemed to be happening in a pleasant jumble, a haze occasionally punctuated by soft lips, a caress, a sweet word, and Aodhan decided he'd probably drunk far more than he realized tonight-but Aodhan ended up fully naked, on his knees and elbows over Iliana on a plush bed, one hand tangled up in her beautiful hair and kissing his way across her full breasts. He'd only been with a woman once, but Iliana was so very sweet and this seemed so _natural_, Celio's hands stroking down his flank and that lovely dark voice whispering encouragement. For an instant, somewhere in his mind they were _other_ people, familiar and loving, but the thought fled quickly under his haze.

One of Iliana's hands found his chin, fingernails trailing gently through the light scruff already growing back from this morning, and she drew him up into a kiss, twining her other hand into his hair. She tasted like exotic spices and wine, and this was somewhere very close to bliss.

Pain tore through the haze, blinding white and razor sharp, from Aodhan's lower back and angled _up_. He cried out, tried to draw away, but Iliana held him close, kissing him passionately, Celio touched him, spoke soothing words, but it wasn't the first time Aodhan had been shivved with a stiletto-a _pair_, actually, and that _was_ a first-and when the blades drew free he knew exactly what was going on. Iliana was strong, her grip a threat that she'd snap his neck if he tried to draw away, and as he realized he was well and truly _fucked_ Aodhan started to panic.

And then he started laughing into the kiss, a great, heavy laugh that shook his whole body and Iliana had to draw back. Of all the dooms the Maker could've chosen for him, this was probably the most ironic and fitting, but he surely wasn't going to make it any _easier_. His hands were still on her breasts, and it was simple enough to channel magic, the very first thing that came to him, the elemental gift from his mother's blood.

Iliana screamed, wailing like the whore she was, begging her brother to help, but it stopped quickly enough when the air in her lungs grew scarce, her heart froze solid in her chest. Celio stabbed at him again, but it was in vain; Aodhan relinquished control of his magic, and the cold spilled out as surely and swiftly as his heart's blood. When Aodhan gathered enough of his strength and senses to reel on his assassin, the man was clutching an arm pale and stiff with frost to his chest, staring at him in horror for only a moment before running for the the room's only window. Apparently, risking the fall was better than sharing his sister's fate. Aodhan agreed, and began tottering for the door.

When Aodhan grasped for the door handle his hand slipped, leaving a bloody streak that quickly began to crystallize. It was cold, getting colder... He tried again, though the handle was fully frozen now and brittle metal creaked when he opened the door. He stumbled to the head of the stairs, the rug crackling under his bare feet. For a moment it wasn't a brothel in Tevinter, it was Korcari in winter, his breath coming in weak little puffs of smoke and the marsh an endless field of slush... Mother had told them not to go exploring, that the shadows in the sky had only been birds, not the dragon Carver swore he saw winging through the pale morning. Carver had been insistent, and Aodhan said he'd take his younger brother. Father had just given him an approving nod, affirmation that he thought Aodhan was capable. Now when he looked back Carver wasn't there, and he wondered dimly when they'd gotten separated. It was cold, so very cold, and perhaps he should just lay down... Father had said that when you're lost, if you know someone is looking for you, you should find a safe place to wait for them, and maybe a nap would be just the trick...

There were stairs again, with a grass green runner trailing down them, the area just beneath his feet stiff with ice and slick with blood. He needed Seren, needed to tell her... tell her they hadn't been what they seemed, and he was sorry about the room, and the carpet here. He only slid twice, and by the time he managed those last few stairs and ended up on his knees leaning against the wall at the base one of the workers was standing there watching, hands to her mouth, eyes wide. She stepped back daintily from the blood and creeping frost, nearly nipping at her perfect bare toes.

After blinking Aodhan was on the floor somehow, face down, his arms pinned under his chest and he couldn't move at all, the weight of his life far too heavy. In a moment of clarity he thought, _I need __Anders_. But Anders was lost to him forever, lost in Vengeance's mad quest, and Aodhan wasn't sure there'd ever been anything true between them anyway. So barring Anders here to magic him back together and berate him for being reckless before telling him everything would be alright, Aodhan wanted his siblings. If he were to die, it should at least be with his family, not alone in a _whorehouse_. Not like Mother... _that_ was who he wanted, _Mother_, who despite her utter lack of magic would somehow make everything right, or at least make it seem like it was _going_ to be alright.

But when darkness found him it wasn't his family Aodhan dwelt on, but a single, sinful kiss, and the thought that if he made it out of this Maker strike him down but it couldn't get any worse, if Fenris was worth dying in a whorehouse for—because this had to be Danarius' doing—then he was worth the months and years it would take to teach him how to be a free man, and worth waiting for.

Somewhere in the darkness there were hands on his back, a hand on his neck, slick and warm despite the cold. "I'm sorry." A familiar voice, soft and comforting as an evening breeze.

He woke up sitting on Kirkwall's Chantry steps, blinking at the sudden light and shivering despite the warmth. The square was full of people as usual, including a chanter silently posting notices to the board, but they were all strangely faceless, features melting from memory as soon as they passed. "Master! I have him!"

Aodhan jerked around to see Feynriel standing behind him on the steps, but not the scared half-elven child from Kirkwall, instead the young man with strong features in stately Magister's robes. He smiled gently, beaming confidence, and it washed over Aodhan more warmly than the bright sun. "Its going to be alright, Hawke." Feynriel stepped down and sat next to him. "Just stay here with me, and we'll be alright." Feynriel opened his arms as if offering an embrace, and Aodhan felt strangely compelled to accept it, so he did. He laid his head against the young man's shoulder, and there was only an offer of solace here, of overwhelming calm. And _warmth_; the cold was seeping out of him finally. Some part of his mind struggled to analyze what Feynriel was doing, but mostly he didn't care. After all, he could think of much worse company to have during his dying moments in the Fade.


	11. ThirtyFirst Day: Late Morning

Fenris stayed where he was for a few minutes, staring at the space Aodhan had occupied moments before. He wasn't entirely sure _what_ had just happened, but he was quite certain that it _hadn't_ gone well. Kissing Aodhan had been a spur of the moment decision, based on a number of signals from the other man and a strange desire to offer him some sort of comfort. Around the alcohol and the obvious _desire_ the mage had seemed unwell in some emotional sense, and Fenris had very little to draw from on _how_ he should offer comfort. It was an intimate action, he knew, and that had been the most chaste and painless intimate action he understood.

He stood, taking the book with him, and cursed his sheltered existence, his strange education in the ways and means of emotion and emoting. While Fenris had been trained to read the people around him, to see their thoughts and feelings in the slightest of tics so that he and his master could take advantage of them, beyond violence he had little idea what to _do_ with those sorts of things.

Much as he wanted to stay here, taking his own comfort in the smell of the room, Fenris knew Aodhan might return at any moment and from his level of distress on fleeing would probably rather be alone. Fenris took his opportunity to escape, and found that his feet took him to the door of the one person who could give him some insight on this. After a moment's hesitation he knocked.

Eventually Isabela opened the door, her hair loose and spilling around her shoulders in disheveled curls, wearing a royal blue robe mostly open in front. Fenris kept his eyes politely averted, and she gave him a lazy smile, purred, "To what do I owe this _pleasure?_"

"I am sorry to bother you," at which she waved her hand dismissively, "but I think that I have upset Aodhan somehow."

"He'll get over it, love. Whether he wants to or not." She leaned against the doorjamb, about to spill out of her robe in a most enticing fashion. "What did you do?"

"I kissed him."

Isabela straightened up, her little smile fading. "What did _he_ do?"

"He fled."

"Well, come on." She ushered him in, shutting and locking the door, and drew her robe into a _slightly_ more modest state. Fenris did not wait to be told to sit in one of the plush chairs in her little parlor; he'd been here often enough.

Isabela had been the one to answer all the questions he didn't know to ask, after all. The one who'd opened his eyes, that Tevinter was an exception, elsewhere mages were hunted and imprisoned. She offered no moral judgment on the topic, only that she felt _no one_ should be held against their will. Isabela had awakened him in a sense, kindled a violent anger at his lot in life. If he had been born _anywhere else_... It had also brought up the uncomfortable question he almost refused to ask, if Aodhan had been born here, in Tevinter... She'd shrugged, said what what a man _could have been_ had little effect on what a man _was_, that everyone had the capacity for cruelty and Fenris would have to decide what sort of cruelties he was comfortable with enduring if he wanted to live around other people.

An uncomfortable truth, and one he dwelt on now, wondering what he'd done to bring the man so close to tears. It stirred all sorts of uncomfortable emotions that Fenris still had trouble separating from his slave-like devotion to his former master and the concept of a Magister.

She sat down across from him, settling herself into a position at once comfortable and commanding. "I suppose this is one of those affairs where we're supposed to have tea, or maybe gin, and natter on thoughtless. Let's get straight to the point: tell me exactly what happened."

So he did. Isabela sighed, covered her face with one hand, fingertips just sliding up into her hairline. "Oh, Aodhan." Her hand fell away, and she gave Fenris a wry little grin. "I expect he won't be back for a few hours. Probably found some bottle to crawl into somewhere. He'll be fine when he's done, if he doesn't drink himself to death. So don't worry about him."

"But what did I do to upset him?"

"Calm down, sweet thing." She made a placating gesture, snuggled into her chair. "Aodhan thinks he's taking advantage of you. He thinks you don't understand what you're doing. And I agree, you don't, but you're not going to figure it out unless you cock up on your own. He's a very safe sort of person to cock up with, mind you. So this will all blow over very simply if you let it drop. And I wouldn't do something like that again unless you mean to convince him you _do _know what you're doing, or at least convince him you're genuine and not just latching onto him like he's your new master."

"I wasn't." Fenris scowled, angry and uncertain where to direct that anger-at Aodhan, probably, for being so... well, all the things Fenris _liked_ about him. The anger deflated slightly. "Its... still hard to separate these sorts of things. You," he nodded to her, "are not so difficult. You have no power over me; you are a friend. I think of Aodhan less as 'Magister' and more as 'Aodhan', but I don't think that will ever truly be gone."

"That's _why _he ran, love. Or part of it, anyway. He thought he'd just done something dreadful."

"I am... fond of him." Despite their meaning the words came out sharp, as if each one was a bite, and Fenris' voice raised more than he meant it to. "How do we ever get closer with this between us?"

Isabela gave him a moment to calm down before asking, "Do you mean fond, or _fond_?"

"I don't know." Fenris shook his head, still scowling. "I don't know how to tell these things apart yet. I know that I wish to be closer to him, and accepted as capable of making my own decisions in that regard. And I know that _he_ is _fond_," he mimicked her tone so there would be no mistaking his meaning, "of _me_."

"That's the other half of it, love." Isabela sat forward a little in her seat, heedless of what it did to her neckline. "Aodhan's afraid of being close to people. I don't think the poor man's ever been with someone who didn't hurt him and _wasn't_ a prostitute. He's even afraid of his family; they keep dying on him, or coming very close. Or doing things that wound him; you know, Carver was a Templar, very briefly."

"What do you mean, _hurt_?" Despite the fact that Fenris was seeing him more as a man and less as a Magister, he still couldn't fathom anyone challenging Aodhan.

"Whatever you think it means," she shrugged, a very carefully bland look on her face, which Fenris took to mean that he wouldn't get anything else on the matter out of her, "is probably correct. You've still got a lot to learn about the wide world, sweet thing, and you'll surely understand most things I mean soon enough."

_Soon enough_-Fenris grumbled quietly at the thought, but held his tongue. He had never needed _patience _before, because everything was done at the whim of his master, but Isabela had yet to lead him astray.

A heavy pounding so hard it shook the door alarmed both of them, and Fenris stood, instinctively interposing himself between the door and Isabela. "Iz! Put something on!"

Carver, an undercurrent of urgency in his voice. Isabela glanced briefly to Fenris before calling, "What is it, sweet boy?"

"Aodhan needs us."

Isabela shed her robe without a second's hesitation and disappeared into the other room. She returned in just over a minute, still belting on her daggers but otherwise clothed-as clothed as she ever got, at least. When they exited the room Carver gave him a curious look, which Fenris ignored, trying not to blush; he understood exactly what this looked like.

With the way Carver carried himself, and Isabela falling into a similar manner, they expected a fight. For a moment Fenris considered running back for his armor, asking Carver for a sword-but the nervous air, quickly gaining adrenaline, told him _no time_. The stairs out were far too long.

They met Anders and Bethany outside, a carriage and driver waiting. "It's faster than walking all the way there, come on." She ushered them all in, then shut the door, remaining outside as they pulled away.

"Bethany-"

"Is staying behind to get things ready." Anders scowled right back at Fenris, who tried to sink a little further back into his seat, smoldering angry at the mage. Anders looked to Isabela and asked, "What's the mongrel doing here?"

"_Not _being a self-righteous ass, clearly." She gave him a devious little smile, hardly more than a quirk of her lips. "Now, what's going on?"

"Do you remember Feynriel?" Isabela nodded, and Fenris wracked his brain for the name, coming up with vague images of a young half-elven man, always in the presence of an older Magister. "His mentor contacted Bethany through the Fade. Aodhan's been attacked."

"Anything else?" Anders shook his head, and Isabela just sighed, "Well, bollocks."

The rest of the ride was tense, silent but for the creaking and thudding of the carriage going over stone, and far too long for any of them. When the carriage stopped no one waited for the driver, climbing out both sides.

"This is as far as I'm going, Sers." The driver had removed her smart little cap, and was staring forward, eyes wide and jaw set.

They'd ended up in the nicer part of Minrathous' red light district, and one of the fancier brothels seemed to be on fire, the flames rapidly spreading to nearby buildings. A little gaggle of people was huddled across the street, soot-faced, in various states of undress, some crying and some comforting.

"That's the place," Carver said. "Come on."

Despite the nervous energy to the air they moved with a calm determination, and Fenris struggled to keep up-not in a physical sense. The three of them were all very comfortable with each other, and while he was used to fighting and getting himself in danger the idea of a _unit_ was strange. He hadn't considered them as such until now, but why else would these disparate people be so close?

The front door was collapsed, so they ended up going breaking out a window that seemed relatively clear and, after a blast of furnace-hot air, Carver hauled himself up and through the window.

Isabela gave a nonchalant gesture. "Rescuing cavaliers in distress from burning buildings isn't really my thing, boys. I'll stay out here in case you need to hand anybody out." Anders let it go, but Fenris could see the concern in her eyes, and knew her well enough already to tell the pirate was at war with herself.

Anders generated a little shield for himself, and while Fenris wasn't entirely sure what it did it clearly kept the air a little sweeter. Fenris covered his mouth and nose with the wide sleeve of his borrowed shirt and tried to take in only as much of the smoky, searing air as he needed. He'd hardly gotten his bearings when Carver shouted, "Over here!"

Beams creaked and groaned overhead as they moved through to the front hall, where Carver was pulling a dainty elven woman off Aodhan's prone form. She screamed, hysterical, "No! We built this pyre and we'll die in it!" Simply pushing her away did nothing, so Carver threw her over one shoulder and began heading back to the window, heedless of her kicking and screaming and coughing.

Which left them with Aodhan, who was stark naked and bloody, curled up in an awkward position on the floor. "Bollocks," Anders muttered. "Well, come on, help me."

Fenris didn't need the mage's help, because while Aodhan was taller and as such a little awkward to carry, he wasn't any heavier than he looked. Fenris had little trouble carrying the man, save that the choking smoke was getting to him by the time he handed Aodhan out the window into Carver's waiting arms. Only once he was outside and safely away did Fenris consider that he'd just had the man, naked as the day of his birth, in his arms, and that Aodhan's blood now covered the front of his borrowed shirt.

Anders had Aodhan laid out on the side of the street, mumbling curses under his breath and something about the tribulations of being a combat healer while he was pouring healing magic into the elder Hawke, hands surrounded in a gentle blue-white glow and an aura of it clinging to him. He told Carver, "Go get that damn carriage, we'll need it." And once the man was out of earshot Anders looked up at Isabela, shook his head sadly. "He's already gone. His spirit's clinging to the flesh like something's holding it here, but he's been dead for a while."

"So that's it?" She sounded surprised as much as anything. "The mighty Champion of Kirkwall gets shanked in a brothel? I suppose its fitting, if you know him."

Anders' grim expression fell into something much darker, a despondent sort of look, and Fenris felt for a moment as though the world were dropping out from under him. Aodhan's death would remove any choice he had; he would _have _to flee with Isabela. But he wanted to stay, at least for a while, and he was only now certain.

He wanted to stay, with Aodhan.

"Don't pretend we don't care," Anders muttered to himself before looking up at Fenris. "Can you put your hands through someone without injuring?"

"I have that much control, yes."

"Could you pump someone's heart?"

"Yes." Fenris answered without hesitation, before the fear could set in, and knelt to help Anders roll Aodhan over-the wounds on his back were sealed-and after some brief shuffling around Fenris ended up straddling Aodhan, hands against the prone man's chest, and Anders knelt over Aodhan's head, hands on either side.

Anders' hands began to glow, the same sort of strange cracked pattern to the light Fenris had seen in the estate. "Okay." He shifted, a little nervously. "Go ahead."

Fenris was gentle as he could be, careful to keep his fingers from nicking anything connective, and he cleared his mind, looking for that calm state he found in the heat of battle before he began squeezing in rhythm. It relied heavily on adrenaline, which he found in no short supply. He quite literally held Aodhan's heart in his hands right now.

It seemed a strangely fitting metaphor, after all Isabela had told him.

Seconds turned to minutes, and seemed to stretch on far longer, until Anders muttered, "Come _on_, damnit!"

The magic Anders used was starting to make Fenris' tattoos buzz, his head buzz, until he was solely focused on this sensation and the motion of pumping. His hands were beginning to cramp because it wasn't a motion he did very often, and despite the fact that Aodhan was _dead_ it was a good, strong heart-and he'd torn quite a few out in his time, so he had something to compare it to. If Aodhan lived... _if_...

When someone drew power from him Fenris grunted, glanced up at Anders to glare, but the mage was wholly absorbed in his work. When he felt a familiar power thrumming through his tattoos counter to Anders' strange magic he finally noticed Aodhan's heart pushing back against his hands. Aodhan pulled from the lyrium in Fenris' skin, _hard_, and Fenris jerked his hands out safely before he blacked out for an instant, ending up on the ground next to Aodhan, curled up against the pain and the emptiness wracking him. In spite of it, Fenris was grinning dumbly.

Aodhan coughed weakly, trying to draw air into sooty lungs, but it was quite possibly the most satisfying sound Fenris had ever heard. Anders was soothing the other mage, pointless as he was unconscious, and shot a glare at Fenris-but there seemed to be a smile behind Anders' eyes.


	12. The ThirtyFourth Day

A/N: Apologies for lateness, I have the funk. I don't mean that freaky dancefloor funk or the ten day old gym socks funk.

* * *

><p>Hands, soothingly cool, the strong, slender hands of a healer, and too familiar-he flinched away, tried to voice his fear, but if words came out he couldn't be sure. A voice, hesitant, by tone rebuking-but not at him. His quiet dreams gently tended by an unseen hand became feverish nightmares of those last few weeks in Kirkwall, and eventually he died in the fire that had signaled the end of his ill-fated relationship. That brought peace again.<p>

Hands, small and tenderly familiar, and hands large, strong, calloused, their touch brief and awkward but full of emotion. For a while he dwelt in Lothering by proxy, and things were at the very least peaceful, though it seemed somehow hollow and sorrowful. He could never go back.

Hand weather worn but well cared for, a smell of sea salt and rum. For a while he was free as the gull is free, and the work of his own hands ship-board brought some solace. But then he was drowning in a fathomless ocean, truly lost, and the darkness at the end of his suffocation never came, only sinking forever and dying by inches.

Hands small, strong, calloused, ever so very hesitant, touches brief and surely stolen in moments alone. It was a synesthesia of sort, that those touches broke through not just as the physical sensation, the warmth and the tender concern, the fear in them, but as the keening, eerie song of lyrium. It touched his mind and soul as surely as uncertain hands touched his face, his arm, once held his hand for some indeterminate period of time. They brought no dreams, and he was free to wander the Fade as he willed.

There were brief periods of wakefulness, little more than scattered and overwhelming bouts of sensation. At first they made very little sense, disjointed and frightful, and it was too much like his recovery from the duel with the Arishok, when he'd lost far too much blood and infection set into what was left. Light and scent were always too intense, temperature too extreme, and he could make out the faces of those around him but never make sense of them.

When he truly woke for the first time it was a gentle thing, like waking in the morning to birdsong and warm sunshine, a muzzy haze that after some consideration he decided must be a drug Anders had given him. It put him in a pleasant state, regardless.

"Aodhan."

He shifted his head just enough to look at the speaker, which was _almost_ more effort than it was worth. Fenris was not who he had expected to see first, but he offered the elf the best smile he could manage.

The look Fenris gave him in return, not quite a smile but something very close, was absolutely worth it. When Aodhan's gaze lingered too long Fenris ducked his head, shaking it a little so that the longer forelocks of snowy hair fell in to place to hide his eyes. "Bethany just left," he said, dark voice quiet. "But Anders. I should go get Anders."

When Fenris stood Aodhan mustered every ounce of his strength to reach out and grab the elf's wrist before he moved too far. There was a little ripple of light through the brands, a flinch, but Fenris turned to look at him, green eyes glittering with some carefully schooled emotion from behind shaggy white hair.

"Stay. With me. Please." It hurt, and his voice came out raspy and weak, throat trying to stick to itself. "I need you. Here. More than I need them."

Fenris sat back down in the chair next to the bed and Aodhan let go, hand falling limply to the bed as though he had no control over it, as if it belonged to someone else. It may as well, because he didn't think he could do that again. Those eyes still peered out at him from their defensive curtain, the leery, uncertain but hopeful look of a wild thing eying a watering hole before leaving the safety of the trees.

After a while Fenris relaxed, back to what Aodhan assumed was the state of his quiet vigil. It was perhaps the hazy state of mind, or the company and the sense of peace to the room, but Aodhan drifted back to true sleep closer to content than he'd been in a very long time.

When he woke the next time the room was lit by lamplight, the play of light and shadow across the walls and ceiling warm and enclosing like an embrace. Bethany began fussing over him immediately, by turns admonishing him and telling him how happy she was and thanking the Maker. She gave him some water when he asked, then she hurried off to find Anders.

Which left him alone with Fenris, sitting in the very same chair in the very same place, once more.

"Have you been here, long?" When the silence drew on too long Aodhan felt compelled to fill it-he had been in silence long enough, and though the room was comfortable and his mind was still hazy from the drugs he felt a need to reach out in some fashion.

Fenris straightened up, looking away with just eyes for a moment, more the uncertain man than the animal he'd been before. "I have been here or very nearby since we brought you home. In case someone came to harm you again."

The word _home_ and Fenris' tone around it made Aodhan smile again, and Fenris ducked his head a little in response, clearly uncomfortable with the open emotion there. But as the _meaning_ of the words processed Aodhan's smile fell. "You're not a bodyguard. You owe me nothing."

"I do." Fenris twitched in his seat, fidgeting with his hands as if he wanted to do something but wouldn't let himself. "But I... _understand_, and I will only offer in return what I can give freely."

After a moment of unabashed staring, towards the end of which Fenris boldly met his gaze, Aodhan settled down a little more comfortably into the bed, looking back up to the ceiling. "I'm delirious," he managed. "At least its a good delusion."

"What do I have to do," Aodhan hardly had the strength to turn back to Fenris, and when that became apparent the elf leaned forward, coming into the edge of his vision, "to make you treat me like the equal you claim I am?" The edge of anger in his voice sent a little thrill through Aodhan, not quite a shiver. "I have held your heart in my hands-_most literally_." Distantly, Aodhan wondered what had happened on the outside while Feynriel was keeping his spirit moored in the Fade-it wasn't as important as the passion in Fenris' voice, the gesture he made as if holding something desperately precious and shocked to have it. "What slave has ever held so much power over his master? I _understand_, now, and I will act accordingly if you let me."

It wasn't something he was ready to face in his very first waking moments, and it was almost too much like what he'd faced during his convalescence in Kirkwall-but apparently there really _was_ no rest for the wicked _or_ the virtuous, as a particularly glib Chantry sister had once told him in Lothering. "You've been talking to Isabela," seemed like an appropriately flippant thing to say.

"And your Magister friend and his apprentice! And Carver, and Bethany, and even your Grey Warden mage. What does it matter?"

What _did_ it matter who had done the talking, if the result was the same? Maybe... maybe he had turned a blind eye to the person Fenris was becoming because it frightened him, the thought that something he had wanted so desperately might actually be within his grasp... that he would be doubly tempted.

That he would have no excuse but his own fear, which meant he would finally have to acknowledge it.

"What do you want me to do, then?" Aodhan asked, resignedly. He never liked it, but Aodhan was growing more and more accustomed to this sense of helplessness, that though he saw disaster coming he could do nothing to stop it.

When Fenris didn't answer right away Aodhan glanced over to the elf to find he'd drawn back into his chair, hands clasped in his lap, shoulders hunched as though still under the weight of subjugation, staring down at the floor somewhere. That silence drew on an uncomfortably long time, such that Aodhan wondered distantly what was keeping Bethany and Anders.

When Fenris' shoulders shook, as though with a sob, Aodhan forced himself up on his elbows, reached out with one trembling hand but then thought better of it. His arms were shaking already and he felt winded. "Fenris?"

There was no sign of sorrow in Fenris' voice, only an intense determination, an edge bordering on _need_ coloring his tone. "When I injured Carver during our duel, the tenderness you had for him, the closeness... it was the first time I had seen two people exhibit genuine concern for one another. Tevinter is a world of masks and daggers, even among slaves, and I have been sheltered from all true kindness." When he looked up, there were no glittering tears in his eyes, but that same edge of need, a steel that was almost anger, and Aodhan wasn't sure what to make of these conflicting signals. "I wanted it. To be the subject of such treatment. If you had been any other Magister, and taken me when Danarius offered, it would have satisfied my curiosity and I would have happily served him, ignorant, for the rest of my wretched days. But you... are _you_. Freedom and wanting are their own agony. I want you to help me sate that, to help me understand how _normal people_ treat each other. I want to be close to you, part of your family-not a sibling." He paused, looking away for fear of the surprise in Aodhan's pale eyes, and added, "Do not tell me that I do not understand what I am asking. I am aware, and that is precisely _why_ I am asking. I will never understand, otherwise."

Aodhan stared at him, gaping, until Fenris glared back with that same angry steel. After a moment, the mage eased himself back down into the bed, laughing weakly. "If you were anyone else, that would sound like you'd just asked permission to court me, or given me permission to court you."

"If that's what comes of it, then so be it." With the tilt of Fenris' chin, daring Aodhan to tell him otherwise, the elf clearly meant it. "I only want to be close to you, now, to know the sort of intimacy I've seen you treat others with. Not how you treat your friends, keeping them at sword's length as if they're Magisters in the great game. I know that you will protect me from Danarius, and I wish to do the same for you as best I am able. I _have faith_ that you will not take advantage of my ignorance, and I ask you to have faith in _me_ to stop you if I feel you _are_."

Just as Aodhan opened his mouth to respond Anders and Bethany whisked in through the door, Anders very pointedly ignoring Fenris where he sat at the bedside. The mage sat down on the edge of the bed and laid his hands against Aodhan's face, then took up his wrist to feel for his pulse. "You look flushed. Is something wrong?"

"It's a bit warm," Aodhan quipped, a prepared response Anders knew well, and the healer scowled at him. "Really, I'm feeling rather well. Think I'll go for a walk."

Anders dropped Aodhan's arm in disgust, and it made a soft 'tmp' on hitting the bed. "Next time you decide to get shanked, have the decency to do it somewhere other than a seedy brothel." Before Aodhan could offer any further response Anders added, "Do you think you could manage some food?"

"I have no idea but I'd be _terribly_ eager to try." Aodhan gave him a somewhat weaker version of his winning smile, and Anders grumbled something under his breath before standing from the bed and leaving.

Bethany immediately took Anders' place, even taking up Aodhan's hand in hers. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I don't know, Sunshine." He gave her hand a weak squeeze, and she smiled brightly at Varric's old nickname. "But I do know I have to piss like a horse."

Bethany blushed and scowled at him. "Even when you're half dead you're _completely incorrigible_." She looked over to Fenris, who had remained silent but attentive through the exchange, and he gave her a little nod. "I'll go make sure Anders isn't poisoning you."

Once Bethany was gone, the door closed behind her, Aodhan looked over to Fenris, who didn't flinch from his gaze for once. "I'm afraid I won't be much good to you for a while."

"Allies aid one another. If we are to be close in some fashion, I will serve you as best I'm able while you're convalescing."

"_Help_," Aodhan corrected. "Not _serve_. We're equals, friends, _whatever_ we are. I don't want to hear the word _serve_ out of your mouth again unless you're talking about someone who's _paid_ to do it."

After a moment's hesitation Fenris nodded. "As you ask."

"Now, will you help me up, please? I really _do_ need to piss."


End file.
